Replace tabs with spaces in vim

I would like to convert tab to spaces in gVim. I added the following line to my _vimrc:

set tabstop=2

It works to stop at two spaces but it still looks like one tab key is inserted (I tried to use the h key to count spaces afterwards).

I'm not sure what should I do to make gVim convert tabs to spaces?

Once you've got expandtab on as per the other answers, the extremely convenient way to convert existing files according to your new settings is:

:retab

It will work on the current buffer.

IIRC, something like:

set tabstop=2 shiftwidth=2 expandtab

should do the trick. If you already have tabs, then follow it up with a nice global RE to replace them with double spaces.

If you already have tabs you want to replace,

:retab

Try

set expandtab

for soft tabs.

To fix pre-existing tabs:

:%s/\t/  /g

I used two spaces since you already set your tabstop to 2 spaces.

This worked for me:

you can see tabs with first doing this:

:set list

then to make it possible to replace tabs then do this:

:set expandtab

then

:retab

now all tabs have been replaced with spaces you can then go back to normal viewing like this :

:set nolist

gg=G will reindent the entire file and removes most if not all the tabs I get in files from co-workers.

Add following lines to your .vimrc

set expandtab
set tabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4
map <F2> :retab <CR> :wq! <CR>

Open a file in vim and press F2 The tabs will be converted to 4 spaces and file will be saved automatically.

If you want to keep your \t equal to 8 spaces then consider setting:

   set softtabstop=2 tabstop=8 shiftwidth=2

This will give you two spaces per <TAB> press, but actual \t in your code will still be viewed as 8 characters.

This got it working for me:

:set tabstop=2 shiftwidth=2 expandtab | retab

This article has an excellent vimrc script for handling tabs+spaces, and converting in between them.

> These commands are provided: > > Space2Tab Convert spaces to tabs, only in indents. > > Tab2Space Convert tabs to spaces, only in indents. > > RetabIndent Execute Space2Tab (if 'expandtab' is set), or Tab2Space (otherwise). > > Each command accepts an argument that specifies the number of spaces in a tab column. By default, the 'tabstop' setting is used.

Source: http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Super_retab#Script

" Return indent (all whitespace at start of a line), converted from
" tabs to spaces if what = 1, or from spaces to tabs otherwise.
" When converting to tabs, result has no redundant spaces.
function! Indenting(indent, what, cols)
  let spccol = repeat(' ', a:cols)
  let result = substitute(a:indent, spccol, '\t', 'g')
  let result = substitute(result, ' \+\ze\t', '', 'g')
  if a:what == 1
    let result = substitute(result, '\t', spccol, 'g')
  endif
  return result
endfunction

" Convert whitespace used for indenting (before first non-whitespace).
" what = 0 (convert spaces to tabs), or 1 (convert tabs to spaces).
" cols = string with number of columns per tab, or empty to use 'tabstop'.
" The cursor position is restored, but the cursor will be in a different
" column when the number of characters in the indent of the line is changed.
function! IndentConvert(line1, line2, what, cols)
  let savepos = getpos('.')
  let cols = empty(a:cols) ? &tabstop : a:cols
  execute a:line1 . ',' . a:line2 . 's/^\s\+/\=Indenting(submatch(0), a:what, cols)/e'
  call histdel('search', -1)
  call setpos('.', savepos)
endfunction

command! -nargs=? -range=% Space2Tab call IndentConvert(<line1>,<line2>,0,<q-args>)
command! -nargs=? -range=% Tab2Space call IndentConvert(<line1>,<line2>,1,<q-args>)
command! -nargs=? -range=% RetabIndent call IndentConvert(<line1>,<line2>,&et,<q-args>)

This helped me a bit more than the answers here did when I first went searching for a solution.

first search for tabs in your file : /^I :set expandtab :retab

will work.

expand is a unix utility to convert tabs to spaces. If you do not want to set anything in vim, you can use a shell command from vim:

:!% expand -t8

if u are using makefile or other text file, which need real tab other than some spaces, add set noexpandtab in your ~/vimrc first, or just input set noexpandtab command, when edit some file with vi(vim)