# Replace tab character with rake task?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-tab-character-with-rake-task/81484
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [February 25, 2018, 6:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-tab-character-with-rake-task/81484 "2018-02-25T18:55:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@omarfilip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/omarfilip)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2018, 6:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-tab-character-with-rake-task/81484/1 "2018-02-25T18:55:04Z")
I’ve got a bunch of posts with lines that start with a tab character (` `), and they look like this:
```
The first line of a paragraph
```
is shown as preformatted text.
`rake posts:remap[" ","\ "]` is not finding anything to remap. Is there a way to replace the tab character?
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2018, 9:37pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-tab-character-with-rake-task/81484/2 "2018-02-25T21:37:01Z")
Try
```
rake posts:remap["\t","\ "]
```
---
### Author:  [@omarfilip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/omarfilip)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2018, 9:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-tab-character-with-rake-task/81484/3 "2018-02-25T21:46:57Z")
Are you sure, Jay?
`Are you sure you want to replace all string occurrences of 't' with ' '? (Y/n)`
I migh end up wi h a lo of missing ee h! 😬
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2018, 9:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-tab-character-with-rake-task/81484/4 "2018-02-25T21:57:12Z")
No. I’m not sure. But if that’s the message you got, you might try
```
rake posts:remap["\\t","\ "]
```
---
### Author:  [@omarfilip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/omarfilip)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2018, 9:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-tab-character-with-rake-task/81484/5 "2018-02-25T21:59:08Z")
I get an identical confirmation message as with a single backslash.
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2018, 10:02pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-tab-character-with-rake-task/81484/6 "2018-02-25T22:02:37Z")
Hmm. Maybe
```
rake posts:remap['\t',"\ "]
```
---
### Author:  [@omarfilip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/omarfilip)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2018, 10:04pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-tab-character-with-rake-task/81484/7 "2018-02-25T22:04:24Z")
Still the same message…
---
### Author:  [@omarfilip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/omarfilip)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2018, 10:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-tab-character-with-rake-task/81484/8 "2018-02-25T22:10:15Z")
Perhaps the task needs to be told explicitly to use regex with a type argument?
>
Edit:
```
rake posts:remap["\t","\ ",regex]
Are you sure you want to replace all regex occurrences of 't' with ' '? (Y/n)
```
But, I am still not sure if this would remove all **t** characters.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2020, 8:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/replace-tab-character-with-rake-task/81484/9 "2020-06-13T20:51:02Z")