I don't quite understand this exercise...

I don't quite understand what K&R want me to do in Exercise 1-20 in "The C Programming Language, 2nd Edition". Here's the description:

"Write a program detab that replaces tabs in the input with the proper number of blanks to space to the next tab stop. Assume a fixed set of tab stops, say every n columns. Should n be a variable or a symbolic parameter?"

What does this mean? Do they want me to figure out the amount of spaces a tab takes up on my system, and add them? I'm sort of confused about this question.

--
Patrick M.
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