I'm trying to insert a handful of spaces or a tab in a string.

I search for - and find - " {3}RW[0-9]{2}".

Now, how do I replace the search string with the same search string + a
handful of spaces or a tab?

I cannot understand the KDE Help Centers explanation on back reference

Any suggestions?

In a.o.l.ubuntu Marcel Bruinsma wrote:

> > Where sed and awk use '\&' in the replacement string,
> > Kate apparently expects '\0'. Hence, '\0\t' ought to
> > append a tab character to the matched text.

and that works in my installation