174

Let's say I have a file. How do I write "hello" TAB "alex"?

codeforester
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TIMEX
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7 Answers7

201

This is the code:

f = open(filename, 'w')
f.write("hello\talex")

The \t inside the string is the escape sequence for the horizontal tabulation.

Drew Dormann
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Simone
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    Using `print "a\tb"` gives me `a (8 spaces)b` in the `cmd` on `Windows`. Why is it printing 8 spaces instead of the tab character. – Iulian Onofrei Mar 15 '15 at 16:47
  • What else were you expecting? – Simone Mar 16 '15 at 08:20
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    To display `a (tab character)b` – Iulian Onofrei Mar 16 '15 at 09:13
  • @IulianOnofrei A tab character is a non-printing character, also known as whitespace. You don't see anything when press the Tab key. It just moves the text over by a default number of spaces. Maybe you can draw in characters what you want to appear. Is it --> ? – Rick Henderson May 20 '16 at 15:29
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    @RickHenderson That's not true, a tab character is not just a number of spaces. Maybe your Editor is configured to insert spaces on pressing tab. " " is a tab " " is a space. You may not see the difference here, but open up Word/Libre and you will see the difference. – Patrik Apr 18 '18 at 10:38
  • @Sativa I'm well aware of that thanks. A more correct statement would be the tab moves the text over by a set distance. – Rick Henderson Apr 24 '18 at 14:43
  • @RickHenderson that isn't true either. A tab should put the next character at the next tab stop, whose distance is variable based on the tab spacing and how long the preceding string is. – Foo Bar Jul 09 '20 at 18:00
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    @IulianOnofrei that might be an implementation issue in cmd itself. Monospace consoles may handle text display differently than a text editor would, and auto-convert tabs into spaces on screen. – Foo Bar Jul 09 '20 at 18:14
42

The Python reference manual includes several string literals that can be used in a string. These special sequences of characters are replaced by the intended meaning of the escape sequence.

Here is a table of some of the more useful escape sequences and a description of the output from them.

Escape Sequence       Meaning
\t                    Tab
\\                    Inserts a back slash (\)
\'                    Inserts a single quote (')
\"                    Inserts a double quote (")
\n                    Inserts a ASCII Linefeed (a new line)

Basic Example

If i wanted to print some data points separated by a tab space I could print this string.

DataString = "0\t12\t24"
print (DataString)

Returns

0    12    24

Example for Lists

Here is another example where we are printing the items of list and we want to sperate the items by a TAB.

DataPoints = [0,12,24]
print (str(DataPoints[0]) + "\t" + str(DataPoints[1]) + "\t" + str(DataPoints[2]))

Returns

0    12    24

Raw Strings

Note that raw strings (a string which include a prefix "r"), string literals will be ignored. This allows these special sequences of characters to be included in strings without being changed.

DataString = r"0\t12\t24"
print (DataString)

Returns

0\t12\t24

Which maybe an undesired output

String Lengths

It should also be noted that string literals are only one character in length.

DataString = "0\t12\t24"
print (len(DataString))

Returns

7

The raw string has a length of 9.

CodeCupboard
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  • I need to have a space between my elements that is around half of `\t`. How can I do this? – seralouk Apr 02 '20 at 12:36
  • The Example for Lists is an eyesore. `"\t".join(map(str, DataPoints))` or `print("{}\t{}\t{}".format(*DataPoints))` are significantly DRYer. – Joooeey Apr 18 '23 at 18:56
28

You can use \t in a string literal:

"hello\talex"

Knio
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15

It's usually \t in command-line interfaces, which will convert the char \t into the whitespace tab character.

For example, hello\talex -> hello--->alex.

Peter Mortensen
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Darbio
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15

As it wasn't mentioned in any answers, just in case you want to align and space your text, you can use the string format features. (above python 2.5) Of course \t is actually a TAB token whereas the described method generates spaces.

Example:

print "{0:30} {1}".format("hi", "yes")
> hi                             yes

Another Example, left aligned:

print("{0:<10} {1:<10} {2:<10}".format(1.0, 2.2, 4.4))
>1.0        2.2        4.4
user1767754
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4

Here are some more exotic Python 3 ways to get "hello" TAB "alex" (tested with Python 3.6.10):

"hello\N{TAB}alex"

"hello\N{tab}alex"

"hello\N{TaB}alex"

"hello\N{HT}alex"

"hello\N{CHARACTER TABULATION}alex"

"hello\N{HORIZONTAL TABULATION}alex"

"hello\x09alex"

"hello\u0009alex"

"hello\U00000009alex"

Actually, instead of using an escape sequence, it is possible to insert tab symbol directly into the string literal. Here is the code with a tabulation character to copy and try:

"hello alex"

If the tab in the string above won't be lost anywhere during copying the string then "print(repr(< string from above >)" should print 'hello\talex'.

See respective Python documentation for reference.

Pavel Shishpor
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2

Assume I have a variable named file that contains a file. Then I could use file.write("hello\talex").

  1. file.write("hello means I'm starting to write to this file.
  2. \t means a tab
  3. alex") is the rest I'm writing
William Zeng
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