Summary to "<tab> to space under vi" -- from original poster

[Doug Schwartz]

In article <465 at gordon.UUCP>, kelvin at gordon.UUCP (Kelvin Lam) writes:
...
> Work arounds:
> 	3.  Re-map <tab> key to insert n-<space>.
> 	    Note for method 2 and 3:
> 		This isn't what I want and it won't get the desired result
> 		because not all <tab>'s can be replace by 8 spaces.
> 		Alignment problem, you know.

I must be missing something here.  I thought you wanted to be able to
insert N spaces when you pressed the Tab key while in {insert/open/append}
mode in vi.  If so, this suggestion will always work (put it in your .exrc
file):

:map!<sp>^V^V<tab>^V^V<sp><sp><sp><sp><sp><sp><sp><sp>

where:

	<sp>	is a space
	<tab>	is a tab
	^V	is control-v

Note that this assumes you are using vi on the .exrc file.
The ^V^V combination is needed, since the first one escapes
the second one which in turn escapes the <tab> or <sp>'s.

If this isn't what you want, tell me where I am amiss.

Now if you use an advanced editor, such as emacs, you could
just:

	(setq tab-width 8)
-- 
Doug Schwartz
Sequent Computer
Beaverton, Oregon
tektronix!ogcvax!sequent!dougs