terminal.integrated.tabStopWidth does not affect tab output #284617
Description
Type: Bug
Steps to Reproduce:
- Open VS Code integrated terminal.
- Set terminal.integrated.tabStopWidth to a non-default value such as 4
- Run a simple program that outputs a tab character such as print(a\tb)
- Observe that the output still uses 8 spaces per tab, ignoring the setting.
Expected behavior:
The tab character \t in program output won't respect the configured tab width in terminal.integrated.tabStopWidth.
In this example, a\tb should align with a 4 space tab instead of 8.
I'm a beginner in Python and few days ago I was playing with tab stop settings in VS Code to understand how it works. So, editor.tabSize works as expected, it changes the size of how many spaces a tab is equal to in the editor. However, terminal.integrated.tabStopWidth does not work as expected, if I'm not missing something.
VS Code version: Code 1.107.1 (994fd12, 2025-12-17T14:15:14.850Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200
Modes:
System Info
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| CPUs | AMD Ryzen 5 3550H with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx (8 x 2096) |
| GPU Status | 2d_canvas: enabled direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: enabled_on rasterization: enabled raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_graphite: disabled_off trees_in_viz: disabled_off video_decode: enabled video_encode: enabled webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled webgpu: enabled webnn: disabled_off |
| Load (avg) | undefined |
| Memory (System) | 13.94GB (2.76GB free) |
| Process Argv | --crash-reporter-id 3e099f6b-8b0a-4860-8190-dace1216443d |
| Screen Reader | no |
| VM | 0% |
Extensions (10)
| Extension | Author (truncated) | Version |
|---|---|---|
| copilot-chat | Git | 0.35.2 |
| debugpy | ms- | 2025.18.0 |
| python | ms- | 2025.20.1 |
| vscode-pylance | ms- | 2025.10.4 |
| vscode-python-envs | ms- | 1.14.0 |
| jupyter | ms- | 2025.9.1 |
| jupyter-keymap | ms- | 1.1.2 |
| jupyter-renderers | ms- | 1.3.0 |
| vscode-jupyter-cell-tags | ms- | 0.1.9 |
| vscode-jupyter-slideshow | ms- | 0.1.6 |
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