Tabs and Haskell

Alistair David Reid wrote:

"Rijk-Jan van Haaften" <rjchaaft@cs.uu.nl>:

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What does the language definition say about [tabs]?

Sigbjorn:

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Nothing at all, I believe, but the convention is [...]

The Haskell 1.4 report says what is meant to happen (section 1.5) (which was to follow the convention).

The Haskell 98 report omits this section.

I would like to report this omission as a bug in the report. Absolutely not. Tab interpretation is OS dependent, it isn't for the language to specify. In any case, you would also need to specify the effect of backspaces, vertical tabs . . .

Basically, I think that if your program relies on Unix-like tab handling, you have only yourself to blame . . .