Don't worry about the indexes, just fix the tabs. 

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict; # https://perlmonks.org/?node_id=11140114
use warnings;

my $input = << "EOF";
foo\tbar\t\tbaz\tbooz\t\tqaaz\t\t\tabc
foo\t\tbar\tbaz\t\tbooz\tqaaz\tabc\t123
foo\t\tbar\t\tbaz\t\tbooz\tqaaz\t\tabc
EOF
print "$input\n";

open my $in, '<', \$input or die $!;
my @tabs;
while( <$in> )
  {
  my $index = 0;
  $tabs[$index++] |= $& while /\t+/g;
  }
seek $in, 0, 0;
while( <$in> )
  {
  my $index = 0;
  print s/\t+/$tabs[$index++]/gr;
  }

[download]

In reply to Re: misalined TABs using substr,LAST_MATCH_START/END,regex by tybalt89
in thread misalined TABs using substr,LAST_MATCH_START/END,regex by perl_boy

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.