HTML report not properly handling tab stops

[Loefer]

When performing a diff between two code files (in my example, .cs files) certain tab stops appear appropriately in the editor window but incorrectly when I generate an HTML text comparison report. For example, I have some code in these files where a list of variables on the left has had their value assignments on the right column-aligned using tab stops, similar to the following example:

string short =          "test";
string medium =         "test";
string extremelylong =  "test";

In the HTML report these tabs appear to be inserted using 4 spaces regardless of their column alignment, whereas in the editor window and obviously in my code editor the tabs are adjusted to the nearest 4-space column. In the HTML report they end up looking similar to this:

string short =        "test";
string medium =          "test";
string extremelylong =  "test";

Unfortunately this makes my HTML reports look very sloppy compared to the code itself, or even the way the diff looks in the BC3 editor window. Is there anything I can do to fix this, or is it simply an artifact of the HTML report and something I have to live with?

[Aaron]

Hello,

Handling whitespace in HTML can be tricky. Unfortunately, our current reports do not handle treating tabs the way you expect. We currently handle a tab character by inserting &nbsp (space) characters. It is something we can look into and add to our Customer Wishlist, but we are in the middle of a few large projects and won't be able to research this soon.

[Loefer]

Thanks for the response Aaron. I might be able to address this by adding an intermediate step into my report generator that processes tab stops to spaces, then performs the report. That said, it sure would be a nice improvement to have the HTML reports match the editor display if you guys eventually get the time.