In Eclipse, how can spaces behave as tabs?

Question

I have replaced all my tabs by spaces in my PHP code source (and I configured Eclipse to use 4 spaces as tabs). When I hit tab, I get 4 spaces, that\'s OK.

Answer 1

9+ years later, space will behave as tab when it comes to deletion.
With Eclipse 4.14 (part of the Eclipse 2019-12 simultaneous release, available December 18, 2019), you can use delete spaces as tabs

See "Backspace/delete can treat spaces as tabs"

If you use the Insert spaces for tabs option, now you can also change the backspace and delete keys behavior to remove multiple spaces at once, as if they were a tab.

The new setting is called Remove multiple spaces on backspace/delete and is found on the General > Editors > Text Editors preference page.