tabify

English

Etymology

From tab +‎ -ify.

Verb

tabify (third-person singular simple present tabifies, present participle tabifying, simple past and past participle tabified)

1. (transitive, computing) To reformat (text) by converting spaces into tab characters.
   • 1985, Terry A. Ward, Applied programming techniques in C:

     A common use of this program is to tabify text files which you've loaded in over the phone from a computer system (like UNIX) that tends to turn all tabs into spaces for 300 baud DEC writers.

   • 1999, Michael Amundsen, Practical Visual InterDev 6:

     You can only tabify source code

Antonyms

• untabify

See also

• Tabs vs Spaces Debate in Programming