Bash Shell: Convert Tabs To Spaces In a File

How do convert tabs to spaces in a file using a bash shell?

You can use various tools. The expand command converts all tabs to spaces. It preserves backspace characters in the output; they decrement the column count for
tab calculations.

expand input.file > output.file
expand data.txt > output.txt
expand -t 2 data.txt > output.txt

The -t option can be used to set comma separated list of explicit tab positions. You can use the unexpand command convert spaces to tabs. See man page for more info:
man expand
man unexpand