How to display a TAB (hex 09) character

[440bx]

Hello Gary,

You may want to try @Thausand's suggestion. 

May be I mistake but was not work LB_SETTABSTOPS and LBS_USETABSTOPS for windows ?

it will take a little more work than simply substituting the TAB character for a space but the result should be more as intended (and likely more visually pleasant.)

HTH.

[Thaddy]

This is my take:

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. program tabexpander;
2. {$ifdef fpc}{$mode objfpc}{$endif}{$H+}
3. uses sysutils;
4.  
5. operator in (v:char;s:string):Boolean;inline;
6. begin
7.   result := pos(v, S) <> 0;
8. end;
9.  
10. function expandtabs(const s:ansistring;tabsize:byte = 8):ansistring;inline;
11. begin
12.   Result := s;
13.   while #9 in result do
14.     result := stringreplace(Result,#9,stringofchar(#32,tabsize - (pos(#9,result)-1) mod tabsize),[]);
15. end;
16.  
17. begin
18.   WriteLn('"', ExpandTabs('1234567'#9'abc'), '"');
19.   WriteLn('"', ExpandTabs('123456'#9'abc'), '"');
20.   WriteLn('"', ExpandTabs('123'#9'abc'), '"');
21.   WriteLn('"', ExpandTabs('1'#9'abc'), '"');
22.   WriteLn('"', ExpandTabs(#9'abc'), '"');
23.   WriteLn('"', ExpandTabs('123456781234567812345678'), '"');
24.   WriteLn('"', ExpandTabs('1234'#9'abcd'#9'xyz'), '"');
25.   WriteLn('"', ExpandTabs('abc'#9#9'abc'), '"');
26.   WriteLn('"', ExpandTabs(#9#9'abc'), '"');
27.   WriteLn('"', ExpandTabs('abc'#9), '"');
28.   WriteLn('"', ExpandTabs('abc'#9#9), '"');
29.   WriteLn('"', ExpandTabs('abc'#9'abc'#9), '"');
30.   ReadLn;
31. end.

Identical output as @wp
There is a bug in my code: tabsize can not be 0. Some other solutions - e.g. Jamie's - have the same issue: modulo 0 = division by zero.
To correct that:

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. function expandtabs(const s:ansistring;tabsize:byte = 8):ansistring;inline;
2. begin
3.   Result := s;
4.   case tabsize of
5.   0:result := stringreplace(result,#9,'',[rfReplaceAll]);
6.   1:result := stringreplace(result,#9,#32,[rfReplaceAll]);
7.   2..255:while #9 in result do
8.            result := stringreplace(Result,#9,stringofchar(#32,tabsize - (pos(#9,result)-1) mod tabsize),[]);
9.   end;
10. end;