Text Processingflags: g

Tab Character

Match literal tab characters — the regex behind every formatter / linter that yells about indentation.

Available in

JavaScript / ECMAScript code

jsJavaScript

const re = new RegExp("\\t", "g");
const input = "  spaces\\there";
const matches = [...input.matchAll(re)];
console.log(matches.map(m => m[0]));

Uses `String.prototype.matchAll` for global iteration (Node 12+ / all modern browsers).

Python (re) code

pyPython

import re

pattern = re.compile(r"\t")
input_text = "  spaces\there"
for m in pattern.finditer(input_text):
    print(m.group(0))

Stdlib `re` module — no third-party dependency. Works on Python 3.6+.

Go (RE2) code

goGo

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"regexp"
)

func main() {
	re := regexp.MustCompile(`\t`)
	input := `  spaces\there`
	for _, match := range re.FindAllString(input, -1) {
		fmt.Println(match)
	}
}

Uses `regexp.MustCompile` (panics on bad patterns at startup) and `FindAllString` for all matches.

Pattern

regexengine-agnostic

\t   (flags: g)

Raw source: \t

How it works

\t is the escape for the tab character (U+0009). The g flag finds every occurrence. Pair with `replace(re, ' ')` for tabs-to-spaces conversion or use it as a detector to flag mixed indentation.