1 line of code: How to convert spaces to tabs

const spacesToTabs = (str, tabsize = 4) =>
  str.replace(new RegExp(` {${tabsize}}`, "g"), "\t");

Returns the string and replaces all tabs with the given amount of spaces (tab size).

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The repository & npm package

You can find the all the utility functions from this series at github.com/martinkr/onelinecode
The library is also published to npm as @onelinecode for your convenience.

The code and the npm package will be updated every time I publish a new article.

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Photo by zoo_monkey on Unsplash

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Comments

[Alex Lohr]

This is still converting tabs to spaces, not the other way around, as advertised.

const spacesToTabs = (input, length = 4) => input.replace(new RegExp(` {${length}}`, 'g'), '\t');

[Martin Krause]

Hi Alex,

thank you for pointing this out. Classic copy & paste error.

I updated the code and the article with my originally inteded code.

Cheers!

[Jan Cizmar]

Shorter! 😅

const spacesToTabs = (str, tabsize = 4) =>
    str.replace(/\s{${tabsize}}/g, "\t")