How do I enter a literal tab character in a bash shell?

Question

I wanted to use the sort utility with the -t option to specify tab separators, but

sort -t "\t"

doesn't work.

Why won't '\011' work? Tried it on my Linux box and for some reason it doen't work. — Bing Bang, Jun 03 '20 at 22:55
I tried \t and it doesn't work, neither does \n, Is there a csh switch to turn off escaped characters? If there is, I've never heard of it. — Bing Bang, Jun 03 '20 at 23:26

surfasb · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-28T17:13:52.263

112

Don't use double quotes.

sort -t $'\t'

Or I think Ctrl V inserts a Tab??

Edit:

edited Nov 28 '11 at 17:13

answered Nov 28 '11 at 16:24

surfasb

Doesn't tab insert a tab? – RedGrittyBrick Nov 28 '11 at 16:32
6

@RedGrittyBrick Tab completes. – Daniel Beck Nov 28 '11 at 16:48
17

Control-V alone won't work; Control-V + Tab will. I like the $'...' trick, though; now I've learned something new. :-) – L2G Nov 28 '11 at 17:04
I've always learned it as $' '. It allows you to enter a string, but also have escaped characters. Double quoting literally prints \t If you leave off the quotes you get a tab character. – surfasb Nov 28 '11 at 17:09
won't work in dash – CervEd Feb 09 '23 at 12:59
good to know, thanks :) -- I also discovered that: echo $'\t' is different from echo "$'\t'" -- that seems a bit weird, since normally $something works the same, with or without douiblequotes.... – Rop Jun 02 '23 at 13:46

score 74 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 05 '16 at 16:29

74

Try Control-v, then Tab. If you see the cursor tab over to the right, it worked.

According to the comment by Mark you can also try Control-v and then Control-i.

edited Aug 05 '16 at 16:29

answered Nov 28 '11 at 16:43

L2G

1

When I do this, I get a real tab (i.e. indentation). – Daniel Beck Nov 28 '11 at 16:49
3

Oops. You're right. But it is entering the tab character, not doing command-line completion (which is what bash normally does with a tab). I tried sort -t " " (with the literal tab as described above) and it worked for me. – L2G Nov 28 '11 at 16:57
Yep, that's what I meant by indentation. Didn't know a better term. – Daniel Beck Nov 28 '11 at 17:13
1

Ctrl-v, Ctrl-i will also work (I found this answer here). Also, I think a Ctrl-q, Ctrl-v, Tab will work. Thanks L2G! – Mark Nov 28 '11 at 17:20
BTW, I would love to accept both answers, but since I think surfasb's solution is more readable, I accepted hers. I like yours, too, though, so voted it up. Thanks! – Mark Nov 28 '11 at 17:23
why does the ctrl-v then tab and ctrl-v then ctrl-i work? what part of the bash man page describes why? – Trevor Boyd Smith Jan 04 '19 at 13:38
what if my clipboard is full... and ctrl-q is a terrible idea, closes application – Nimitz14 Apr 11 '21 at 09:19

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 13 '22 at 01:10

1

To put tab:

Using above mentioned step adding tab

Saving in file

Final Output

answered Oct 13 '22 at 01:10

Nikhil

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 18 '21 at 12:08

You can also use printf:

sort -t "$(printf "\t")"

Not like $'\t', printf use double quotes which allow you to use environment variables, like below:

char="\t" # any source just plain text
sort -t "$(printf "$char")"

Single quote is static and not flexible, though it's simple, you can choose based on your requirement.