Rational Developer for System z

Setting tabs

Tab stops can be defined using preferences for the editor. The default tab settings for the COBOL Editor tabs are columns 8, 12, 17 and every 4 characters after column 17.

About this task

You can specify any number of values. The values must be integers listed in increasing order separated by a blank space.

After the last custom tab stop, remaining tab stops are calculated based on the tab width preference value.

Procedure

  1. To set the tab width value, complete the following steps.
    1. To set the tab width value, click Window > Preferences > General > Editors > Text Editors.
    2. In the Display tab width field, type an integer value between 1 and 16. The default value is 4. The value for Insert spaces for tabs field is ignored in the COBOL Editor. Tabs are replaced with spaces for these editors.
  2. Complete the following steps to set custom tabs.
    1. To set the tab width value, click Window > Preferences > COBOL > Editor.
    2. In the Custom tab stops field, type the tab stop locations. The values specified must be integers in ascending order.

Example

If the Custom tab stops are “8 12 20” and the Displayed tab width is 2, the tab stops will be "8 12 20 22 24" and so on in increments of 2. When the Tab key is pressed in the editor, the cursor will stop at each of the above tab stops.


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