From: bdarnell AT vnet DOT net (Ben Darnell)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: Text editors
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 23:14:15 GMT
Organization: Vnet Internet Access, Inc.
Lines: 24
Message-ID: <32e5409f.2265117@news.vnet.net>
References: <32D332BD DOT AAD AT dmv DOT com> <5bv885$s42 AT pulp DOT ucs DOT ualberta DOT ca> <5c0ko5$c2q AT pulp DOT ucs DOT ualberta DOT ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host: vts-char3-s14.vnet.net
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

On 20 Jan 1997 20:32:05 GMT, bhodge AT gpu1 DOT srv DOT ualberta DOT ca (B Hodge)
wrote:

>> 2. REAL TABS! Not 4/8/whatever spaces!
>
>Very important.  Especially with DJGPP's make utility which only accepts
>real tab characters.  However I have noticed something interesting with
>EDIT.  If the file you are editing already contains a TAb character,
>apparently EDIt then uses the actual TAb character.  So I'd start making
>my makefile with a simple COPY CON to get a single statement with a TAb
>character in it then I can edit it with EDIT and had no problems with it.

DOS edit does this on a line-by-line basis.  If you don't change a
line, it is saved to the file exactly as it was (i.e. with tabs
intact).  However, if you change a line, it converts tabs to spaces on
that line.  unexpand (one of the textutils) will convert tabs to
spaces (the cat is needed to force it to use a temporary file):
unexpand %1 | cat > %1

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