• spartanatreyu@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    a tab’s length changes based on its position in a line

    What does this even mean? A tab is a tab.

    Tab’s don’t have multiple lengths inside a file, they all have the same length.

    That’s the point of tabs.

    • xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      The horizontal tabulation character moves the cursor to the next column which is a multiple of the tabulation length. See the examples here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_key

      At least for me, it renders like this:

      Screenshot of a part of the linked Wikipedia page

      Clearly the whitespace produced by each tab character has a different length.

      • spartanatreyu@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        The horizontal tabulation character moves the cursor to the next column which is a multiple of the tabulation length. See the examples here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_key

        Yes

        Clearly the whitespace produced by each tab character has a different length.

        No, each tab has the same size, the text rendered over the top of the tabs are not the same size.

        Always remember the golden rule: Tabs for indentation, spaces for alignment.