tabs(1) | General Commands Manual | tabs(1) |
tabs - set tabs on a terminal
tabs [options]] [tabstop-list]
The tabs program clears and sets tab-stops on the terminal. This uses the terminfo clear_all_tabs and set_tab capabilities. If either is absent, tabs is unable to clear/set tab-stops. The terminal should be configured to use hard tabs, e.g.,
stty tab0
Like clear(1), tabs writes to the standard output. You can redirect the standard output to a file (which prevents tabs from actually changing the tabstops), and later cat the file to the screen, setting tabstops at that point.
The tabs program processes a single list of tab stops. The last option to be processed which defines a list is the one that determines the list to be processed.
Use a single number as an option, e.g., “-5” to set tabs at the given interval (in this case 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, etc.). Tabs are repeated up to the right margin of the screen.
Use “-0” to clear all tabs.
Use “-8” to set tabs to the standard interval.
An explicit list can be defined after the options (this does not use a “-”). The values in the list must be in increasing numeric order, and greater than zero. They are separated by a comma or a blank, for example,
tabs 1,6,11,16,21
tabs 1 6 11 16 21
Use a “+” to treat a number as an increment relative to the previous value, e.g.,
tabs 1,+5,+5,+5,+5
which is equivalent to the 1,6,11,16,21 example.
X/Open defines several predefined lists of tab stops.
IEEE Std 1003.1/The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7 (POSIX.1-2008) describes a tabs utility. However
The -d (debug) and -n (no-op) options are extensions not provided by other implementations.
Documentation for other implementations states that there is a limit on the number of tab stops. While some terminals may not accept an arbitrary number of tab stops, this implementation will attempt to set tab stops up to the right margin of the screen, if the given list happens to be that long.
tset(1), infocmp(1), ncurses(3NCURSES), terminfo(5).
This describes ncurses version 6.1 (patch 20181013).