# Regex for missing tabs in target

**URL:** <https://forum.xbench.net/t/regex-for-missing-tabs-in-target/1094>\
**Category:** Technical Support\
**Created:** [December 19, 2023, 2:54am UTC](https://forum.xbench.net/t/regex-for-missing-tabs-in-target/1094 "2023-12-19T02:54:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![pabrioux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a5b964/32.png) [@pabrioux](https://forum.xbench.net/u/pabrioux)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 2:54am UTC](https://forum.xbench.net/t/regex-for-missing-tabs-in-target/1094/1 "2023-12-19T02:54:08Z")

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Hi,

I am trying to create a rule to check for missing tabs in the target text.  
For instance, I would like to find segments where there are three tabs in a row in source, but only two in target.

I found out that I can find tabs with [:control:], but I have no idea how to create a rule that would compare the number of tabs between source and target.

I am fairly new to Xbench and Regex, so thank you in advance for your help!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![omartin](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/forum.xbench.net/omartin/32/82_2.png) [@omartin](https://forum.xbench.net/u/omartin)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2023, 2:28pm UTC](https://forum.xbench.net/t/regex-for-missing-tabs-in-target/1094/2 "2023-12-19T14:28:05Z")

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Instead of `[:control:]`, use `\x09` to search for tabs, which stands for the hexadecimal value. To find segments that contain a tab in source but not in target, use the following search:

Source: `\x09`  
Target: `-\x09`  
Seach mode: Regular Expressions  
PowerSearch: on.

To search for segments with 2 tabs in target but some is missing in target, use the following one:

Source: `^[^\x09]*\x09^[^\x09]*\x09`  
Target: `-^[^\x09]*\x09^[^\x09]*\x09`  
Seach mode: Regular Expressions  
PowerSearch: on.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![pabrioux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a5b964/32.png) [@pabrioux](https://forum.xbench.net/u/pabrioux)\
**Post date:** [December 21, 2023, 6:33am UTC](https://forum.xbench.net/t/regex-for-missing-tabs-in-target/1094/3 "2023-12-21T06:33:21Z")

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Thank you for your help, it worked!