Tab space issue - php

Question

I made a simple query system through mySQL which is showing me 100 records and I fetch them into my game but I have probelm with the codes in PHP.
I want to have 5char space between each row So I have to use tab space (\t\t\t\t\t), But I have a problem with this current system (e.g If I have field with two diffrent string value 10char and 2char then use tab space to make space between them I get different results:
2Char string + 5char space = 7Char and 10Char string + 5Char space = 15Char
$query = "SELECT * FROM `scores` ORDER by `score` DESC LIMIT 100";
$result = mysql_query($query) or die('Query failed: ' . mysql_error());
$num_results = mysql_num_rows($result);
for($i = 0; $i < $num_results; $i++)
{
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
echo $i+1 . "-" . "\t\t Name: " .$row['name'] . "\t\t\t\t Device: " . $row['device'] . "\n \t\t Difficulty: " . $row['level']. "\t\t\t\t Score: " . $row['score'] . "\n\n";
}
Codes Output
1- Name: James Device: HTC OneX
Difficulty: Hard Score: 5760
2- Name: Erika_S Device: PC
Difficulty: Normal Score: 13780
...
My Desired Output
1- Name: James Device: HTC OneX
Difficulty: Hard Score: 5760
2- Name: Erika_S Device: PC
Difficulty: Normal Score: 13780
...

Answer 1

Tab in fact is one char, but displayed in the way that user want. When, for example, in IDE you choose 8 spaces for 1 tab you will get it. There's a fantastic concept called elastic tabstops, but it's only concept - so sad.
Conclusion: you can't do it what you described with tab.
What you can do:
Calculate needed spaces and hardcode with , but it's dirty and you shouldn't do this.
Use html tables

Answer 2

Instead of $row['...'] use sprintf("%-15s", $row['...']), but in each place you'll need to adjust the number (-15) to what's really needed
<?php
$s = 'monkey';
$t = 'many monkeys';
printf("[%s]\n", $s); // standard string output
printf("[%10s]\n", $s); // right-justification with spaces
printf("[%-10s]\n", $s); // left-justification with spaces
printf("[%010s]\n", $s); // zero-padding works on strings too
printf("[%'#10s]\n", $s); // use the custom padding character '#'
printf("[%10.10s]\n", $t); // left-justification but with a cutoff of 10 characters
?>
The above example will output:
[monkey]
[ monkey]
[monkey ]
[0000monkey]
[####monkey]
[many monke]
read more at http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.sprintf.php
if you can't use printf, you can easily create your own function that does something similar, and is enough for what you need:
function add_spaces($str, $total_len) {
return $str . substr(" ", 0, $total_len - strlen($str));
}