Text::Tabs3pm

Usage

  use Text::Tabs;
  $tabstop = 4;  # default = 8
  @lines_without_tabs = expand(@lines_with_tabs);
  @lines_with_tabs = unexpand(@lines_without_tabs);

Overview

Text::Tabs does most of what the unix utilities expand(1) and unexpand(1) do. Given a line with tabs in it, "expand" replaces those tabs with the appropriate number of spaces. Given a line with or without tabs in it, "unexpand" adds tabs when it can save bytes by doing so, like the "unexpand -a" command.

Unlike the old unix utilities, this module correctly accounts for any Unicode combining characters (such as diacriticals) that may occur in each line for both expansion and unexpansion. These are overstrike characters that do not increment the logical position. Make sure you have the appropriate Unicode settings enabled.

Exports

The following are exported:

expand

unexpand

$tabstop

The $tabstop variable controls how many column positions apart each tabstop is. The default is 8.

Please note that local($tabstop) doesn't do the right thing and if you want to use "local" to override $tabstop, you need to use local($Text::Tabs::tabstop).

Examples

  #!perl
  # unexpand -a
  use Text::Tabs;
  while (<>) {
    print unexpand $_;
  }

Instead of the shell's "expand" command, use:

  perl -MText::Tabs -n -e 'print expand $_'

Instead of the shell's "unexpand -a" command, use:

  perl -MText::Tabs -n -e 'print unexpand $_'