Using tabs spacing in php for text file - php

Question

I'm reading a CSV file and printing the data from the CSV file to 2 .txt files. The output of the text files are as follows
John
Georgina,Sinclair,408999703657,cheque,"First National Bank",Fourways,275.00,12/01/2012
Toby,Henderson,401255489873,cheque,"First National Bank",Edenvale,181.03,12/13/2012
Here is my code:
$file_handle = fopen("debitorders.csv", "r") or die("can't open debitorders.csv");
$absaFile = fopen("ABSA.txt", "w") or die("can't open ABSA.txt");
$firstNationalBankFile = fopen("First National Bank.txt", "w") or die("can't open First National Bank.txt");
while (!feof($file_handle) ) {
$debitorders = fgetcsv($file_handle, 1024, ",");
if ($debitorders[4] == "ABSA"){
print_r ($debitorders[4] . "<br />");
fputcsv($absaFile, $debitorders);
$ABSA_bank = "ABSA";
fopen("ABSA.txt", "a");
file_put_contents('ABSA.txt', $ABSA_bank, FILE_APPEND);
}
if ($debitorders[4] == "First National Bank"){
$FNB_bank = "First National Bank";
print_r ($debitorders[4] . "<br />");
fputcsv($firstNationalBankFile, $debitorders);
$FNB_bank = "First National Bank";
fopen("First National Bank.txt", "a");
file_put_contents('First National Bank.txt', $FNB_bank, FILE_APPEND);
}
}
fclose($file_handle);
fclose($absaFile);
fclose($firstNationalBankFile);
How can I put tab spaces in the output file instead of commas, so that the output instead looks like this:
John
GeorginaSinclair 408999703657 cheque First National Bank Fourways 275.0012/01/2012
TobyHenderson 401255489873 cheque First National Bank Edenvale 181.0312/13/2012
Any help would be appreciated. Thank You

Answer 1

I did something similar a while back although it was the other way around. I replaced tabs with commas. Here is the code I used:
preg_replace('/[ ]{2,}|[\t]/', ',', $string);
The code above removed two tabs and replaced with one comma. So maybe try it this way:
preg_replace(',', '/[ ]{1,}|[\t]/', $string);

Answer 2

As per php manual
int fputcsv ( resource $handle , array $fields [, string $delimiter = "," [, string $enclosure = '"' ]] )
So you can try
fputcsv($absaFile, $debitorders ,"\t");