Substitute all tabs with four blank spaces

Question

The following command will substitute all tabs in a file with four blank spaces:

%s/\t/    /g

In order to run this command whenever I open a new file I included it in my .vimrc by adding:

autocmd BufNewFile  *   exec "%s/\t/    /g"

However this didn't work. Does anyone know why?

New files don't contain any tabs, because they are empty. Are you looking for BufRead? — Rich, May 24 '18 at 09:02
This is a very dangerous command. It will alter every file you open automatically. And if the file is readonly or nomodifiable it will probably throw a bunch of errors, also the use of gdefault has to be considered. I would not recommend this setting! Better would be to set your tabstop setting appropriately and have Vim display tabs as 4 spaces. — Christian Brabandt, May 24 '18 at 09:50

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 24 '18 at 09:05

1

autocmd BufRead  *   exec "%s/\t/    /g"

answered May 24 '18 at 09:05

scrapy

4

you don't need the exe. BTW: are you sure you want to alter existing files automatically? – Christian Brabandt May 24 '18 at 09:39
1

I am sure i want to alter existing files automatically. – scrapy May 25 '18 at 06:40

1 Answers1