NAME detab -- Program to convert tabs into spaces in files in place. SYNOPSIS detab [-] [-binok] [-f] ... detab -h -- for this message. DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Where is the number of spaces per tab (typically 4 or 8). This perhaps should be required, since there doesn't seem to be universal agreement on what the default should be. However, the traditional standard of 8 is the default here. The -f option allows disenables checking for options for all succeeding arguments, thus allowing filenames beginning with a hyphen to be detabbed. Only regular files that have write permission enabled are detabbed. The files are overwritten in place, but only if they contain tabs. (Actually, the program writes a temp file, and then does rename to move it to the desired name. Thus this will fail if you don't have directory write permission.) If a file does not contain tabs, it is not altered. For each eligible file, if the file contained a tab, the line is written to the stdout: Detabbed Otherwise (for eligible files), this output line is written: No tabs in Ineligible files (e.g. directories, readonly files, device files, etc.) are indicated by various messages. Binary files (files with a byte with high bit set) are not eligible unless the -binok option is used. Locks out QUIT and INT signals during each file operation, aborting only between files. However, it is possible that a system failure may leave a harmless temporary file in the same directory as the target file. This program uses the rename system call, which should atomically replace the old file with the detabbed file.