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

Another option is to use $(printf '\t') to insert a tab, e.g.:

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