Re: bash doesn't display tabs for tabs -- ignores tabstops.

[Greg Wooledge]

On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 12:35:02PM -0700, Linda Walsh wrote:
> I.e. do whatever you do to insert a TAB there.  for me, I press TAB,
> Others have to work around BASH's unwanted, 4.x behavior.

I am not able to reproduce your problem.

Here is what I did:

imadev:~$ echo 'x
        y
z'

Which means I typed <e> <c> <h> <o> <space> <'> <x> <Enter> <Ctrl-V>
<Tab> <y> <Enter> <z> <'> <Enter> at the Bash prompt.

Then I pressed <Esc> <k> <v> (I use vi editing mode also).

Inside vi(m), I verified that the stuff in front of the y is an actual
Tab character.

I repeated this in Bash 3.2, 4.0, 4.1 and 4.2.  In every one of those
versions, the command as edited in vi(m) has a literal Tab character.

I also checked in Bash's own readline editor. <Esc> <k> <l> <l> <l> ...
shows me that the character is a Tab, not a bunch of spaces, because
of how the cursor jumps to the "y" in the second line.

Perhaps one of your changes to Bash/readline configuration is responsible
for what you're seeing.  I use very minimal configuration, while yours
seems pretty extensive.