how to work with tab-delimited files?

[Tim Chase]

> So in this situation, when the file is being read, is that
> single space still determined to be a tab, or do you have to
> press tab twice to put a full tab between the names?

If there is a literal tab in the file, it will come in (to your 
code) as a real tab.

Your editor may have settings you can tweak to make it a little 
more apparent.  Vim (my preferred poison) allows you to

	:set list

to see representations the literal tabs in your file.  To turn it 
off, do

	:set nolist

You can also tweak your tabstops:

	:set ts=12

(or whatever number/size accomodates your widest columns) which 
would make a single tab character expand to your desired size. 
This should help line matters up visually a little better.

Alternatively, with vim you can highlight the tabs to make them 
stand out a bit more:

	:match ErrorMsg /\t/

(or you can use another color instead of the ErrorMsg color...if 
you hit <tab> after typing ":match ", it will successively show 
you alternatives, or you can use ctrl+D to show a number of them)

Just a few ideas with a vim spin.  Other quality editors should 
support similar functionality.

-tkc