Bash Shell: Convert Tabs To Spaces In a File

To convert tabs to spaces in a file using a Bash shell, you can use the expand command. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open a terminal and navigate to the directory where the file is located.
2. Run the expand command followed by the name of the file you want to convert. For example, if your file is named example.txt, you would run:
   expand example.txt > newfile.txt


   This will convert the tabs to spaces in the file and output the result to a new file named newfile.txt.

   If you want to overwrite the original file instead of creating a new one, you can use the -i option like this:

   expand -i example.txt


   This will overwrite the original file with the converted version.

3. By default, expand replaces each tab character with eight spaces. If you want to use a different number of spaces, you can use the -t option followed by the number of spaces you want to use. For example, to replace tabs with four spaces, you would run:
   expand -t 4 example.txt > newfile.txt


   or

   expand -t 4 -i example.txt


   depending on whether you want to create a new file or overwrite the original file.

That’s it! Your file should now have its tabs converted to spaces.