How do I enter a literal tab character in a bash shell?

For example, I wanted to use the sort utility with the -t option to specify tab separators, but

sort -t "\t"

doesn't work.

3 Answers

Don't use double quotes.

sort -t $'\t'

Or I think Ctrl V inserts a Tab??

Edit:

Try Control-v, then Tab. If you see the cursor tab over to the right, it worked.

According to the comment by Mark you can also try Control-v and then Control-i.

You can also use printf:

sort -t "$(printf "\t")"

Not like $'\t', printf use double quotes which allow you to use environment variables, like below:

char="\t" # any source just plain text
sort -t "$(printf "$char")"

Single quote is static and not flexible, though it's simple, you can choose based on your requirement.