TAB character

Question

Hello Gurus.
I am working with Oracle Reports 6i and I simply try to print a TAB char at the beginning of my paragraphs. Adding the chr(9) when needed does not work, it is replaced by a space. And space don't work for me as my text is justified.
Is there really no way to have a tab character (indentation) with report?
For example, how can I do this:
(TAB here) Dear Mister Scott,
(TAB here) I would like to indent the first line of my paragraph with Oracle Reports 6i. As the TAB character (chr(9)) does not work with Reports, how could I simply do this? My text is justified and each paragraph is linked to a field.
Thanks in advance!
Guille

Answer 1

I tried it in Report Builder 6.0.8.23.0.
DataModel
1. Query
select '*'||CHR(9)||'Dear Mister Scott,'||'*' My_Tab from dual;
2. Formula Column --> CF_TAB01
function CF_Tab01 return VARCHAR is
begin
RETURN('*'||CHR(9)||CHR(9)||CHR(9)||'Dear Mister Martin,'||CHR(9)||'*');
end;
3. Formula Column --> CF_TAB02
function CF_Tab02 return Char is
v_tab CONSTANT VARCHAR2(10):= CHR(9);
v_string VARCHAR2(80):= '*'||v_tab||v_tab||'Dear Mrs. Willson,'||'*';
begin
srw.message(1.00,'v_string: '||v_string);
RETURN(v_string);
end;
It works fine!
But I could be a problem with the current_character_set.
The following example assumes that the national character set is UTF16:
SQL> select '*'||CHR(9 USING NCHAR_CS)||'Dear Mister Robinson,'||'*' my_tab from dual;
MY_TAB
* Dear Mister Robinson,*