problem with '\t' in java

[mickey]

Hello,
I'm reading a file line by line and I need to print it out but a strange thing:

String [] token = line.split("\\t");
.....
System.out.println( token[0] + '\t' + token[1] );

String [] token = line.split("\\t");
.....
System.out.println( token[0] + '\t' + token[1] );

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the otput is something about:

DDDDD        3333333 //if there are 5 characters appears many spaces
DDDD  3333333 //this should be ok
EEEEE         33333333

DDDDD        3333333 //if there are 5 characters appears many spaces
DDDD  3333333 //this should be ok
EEEEE         33333333

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why that? I need only a tab between them? thanks

[mickey]

I need a help from the best here......
I noticed that problem appear in the console of eclipse only; instead of print out, I tried to print to a file and the tab problem disappear but in the file the tab is something like 10 spaces (' ')

Why all this (I'm working under windows)?
thanks,

[tjm]

Change your regular expression from \\t to \\s+. \\t matches a single tab. \\s matches any whitespace ( tabs, spaces, etc ). The + modifier specifies "at least one". You probably see a difference in output spacing due to the font of each output - i.e. one of the output fonts is monospaced and the other output font is not monospaced. If you must have the output the same, use String.format("%8s\t%8s", token[0], token[1]) where 8 means the requested width.