How can I insert a tab character with sed on OS X?

Question

I have tried:

echo -e \"egg\\t  \\t\\t salad\" | sed -E \'s/[[:blank:]]+/\\t/g\'

Which results in:

eggtsalad

Answer 1

Use ANSI-C style quoting: $'string'

sed $'s/foo/\t/'

So in your example, simply add a $:

echo -e "egg\t  \t\t salad" | sed -E $'s/[[:blank:]]+/\t/g'