Of course, this doesn't actually substitute each space character with a tab, as the original poster claims to want (whether that's what s/he really wants is an open question :)...

Also, the my declaration creates a new lexical variable called $tabstop, which doesn't have any effect on the module's behavior. Instead, you can just get rid of the my since $Text::Tabs::tabstop is exported by the module.

-- Mike

--
XML::Simpler does not require XML::Parser or a SAX parser. It does require File::Slurp.
-- grantm, perldoc XML::Simpler