how to convert ^I character

Question

I have a text file like this:

info  Some info here

In which when I use cat -A display this:

info^I Some info here

How do I edit this so I'll get something like this instead:

info<space>-<space>Some info here

Answer 1

sed 's/\t/ -/' inputfile

if that pattern appears multiple times on a line, use the global option:

sed 's/\t/ -/g' inputfile

if you want to restrict it to certain lines, for example that start with "info":

sed '/^info/ s/\t/ -/' inputfile

You can use the -i option to edit the file in place:

sed -i 's/\t/ -/' inputfile

If you don't do that you can do this equivalent operation

sed 's/\t/ -/' inputfile > outputfile && mv outputfile inputfile