How to replace custom tabs with spaces in a string, depend on the size of the tab?

Question

I\'m trying to write a python function not using any modules that will take a string that has tabs and replace the tabs with spaces appropriate for an inputted tabstop size.

Answer 1

I think Remi's answer is the simplest but it has a bug, it doesn't account for the case when you are already on a "tab stop" column. Tom Swirly pointed this out in the comments. Here's a tested fix to his suggestion:

def replace_tab(s, tabstop = 4):
    result = str()

    for c in s:
        if c == '\t':
            result += ' '
            while ((len(result) % tabstop) != 0):
                result += ' '
        else:
            result += c    

    return result