Expand is a command-line utility in Unix and Unix-like operating systems that converts tabs into spaces. It can be an essential tool while working with file outputs where the formatting can get disturbed due to tabs. This can be especially useful when working with Linux shell scripts, where the tab space might differ on different systems or text editors, resulting in inconsistent formatting. Consistent indentation using space can greatly enhance code readability.
The expand command by default converts tabs into 8 spaces. Here is an example usage:
expand filename
In this example, filename is the name of the file you want to convert tabs into spaces in. Once the command is run, the tab-converted content will be printed to standard output.
For specifying the number of spaces for each tab, the -t option can be used as follows:
expand -t 4 filename
In this example, each tab character in filename will be replaced with 4 spaces. The output would then be displayed on the console.