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From: inc@tc.fluke.COM (Gary Benson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Need detab function
Keywords: detab
Message-ID: <1990Nov21.060849.8066@tc.fluke.COM>
Date: 21 Nov 90 06:08:49 GMT
References: <1990Nov19.210123.20558@gtisqr.uucp>
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 30

In article <1990Nov19.210123.20558@gtisqr.uucp> stu@gtisqr.uucp (Stu Donaldson) writes:
>I need a detab function written in perl.  I'm sure there must be
>something other than the brute force method of implimenting this.
>
>Any help would be appreciated...
>
>	How about a one liner? :-)
>

Well it's not a one-liner, and I didn't even write it -- credit Craig
Johnson here at Fluke for it:

	while (/\t/) {
	  $x = index($_, "\t");
	  $n = 8 - ($x & 7);
	  $spaces = (" " x $n);
	  s/\t/$spaces/;

This relies on the unix 8-spaces-per-tab convention. Depending on your exact
circumstances, you may need to change the expression in the assignment of $n.
For a while, I thought that our emacs had been set up to create and expect
5-space tabs, so Craig changed the third line for me to read:

    $n = 5 - ($x % 5); 

-- 
Gary Benson    -=[ S M I L E R ]=-   -_-_-_-inc@fluke.com_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution
inevitable.   -John F. Kennedy