How can I convert tabs to spaces in every file of a directory?

Question

How can I convert tabs to spaces in every file of a directory (possibly recursively)?

Also, is there a way of setting the number of spaces per tab?

Answer 1

I like the "find" example above for the recursive application. To adapt it to be non-recursive, only changing files in the current directory that match a wildcard, the shell glob expansion can be sufficient for small amounts of files:

ls *.java | awk '{print "expand -t 4 ", $0, " > /tmp/e; mv /tmp/e ", $0}' | sh -v

If you want it silent after you trust that it works, just drop the -v on the sh command at the end.

Of course you can pick any set of files in the first command. For example, list only a particular subdirectory (or directories) in a controlled manner like this:

ls mod/*/*.php | awk '{print "expand -t 4 ", $0, " > /tmp/e; mv /tmp/e ", $0}' | sh

Or in turn run find(1) with some combination of depth parameters etc:

find mod/ -name '*.php' -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 2 | awk '{print "expand -t 4 ", $0, " > /tmp/e; mv /tmp/e ", $0}' | sh