Vim space and Tab Conversion

1. display the tab key

When the file contains the tab key, you cannot see it. To display it:

: Set list

Now the tab key is displayed as ^ I, and $ is displayed at the end of each line, so that you can find the spaces that may be ignored.
One disadvantage of this is that it looks ugly when there are many tabs. If you use a color terminal or GUI mode, VIM can highlight spaces and tabs.
Use the 'listchars' option:

: Set listchars = tab:>-, trail :-

Now, the tab is displayed as ">-", and the extra blank characters at the end of the line are displayed "-". It looks much better, right?

 

 

After the following code is added to. vimrc, restart Vim to generate four spaces by tab:
Set Ts = 4 (Note: ts is the abbreviation of tabstop, with four spaces in the tab width)
Set expandtab

 

For saved files, use the following method to replace spaces and tabs: 
Replace tab with space: 
: Set Ts = 4
: Set expandtab
: % Retab!

 

Replace spaces with tab:
: Set Ts = 4
: Set noexpandtab
: % Retab!

Vim space and Tab Conversion