vim replace tabs with spaces code example

Example 1: vim replace tabs with spaces

" Vi:

" To replace tabs with spaces whilst typing
set tabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab

Example 2: python pad punctuation with spaces

# Basic syntax using regex:
import re
re.sub('characters_to_pad', r' \1 ', string_of_characters)
# Where you can specify which punctuation characters you want to pad in
#	characters_to_pad

# Example usage:
import re
your_string = 'bla. bla? bla.bla! bla...' # An intelligent sentence
your_string = re.sub('([.,!()])', r' \1 ', your_string)
# your_string is updated in place
print(your_string)
--> bla .  bla? bla . bla !  bla .  .  . 
# Notice that the '?' didn't have spaces added because it wasn't listed
#	among the characters_to_pad in the above function