How can I embed tab characters in datetime string formats?

I have to create an output text file that will have lines of dates and times that are delimited by tab characters. I have no control over that format; it's a deliverable that has to be that way.

It looks like the .Format property of a datetime object cannot include escape characters, such as '\t'. Is there any easy way to get what I need, or must I assemble the output string piece-by-piece, using sprintf to insert the tab characters?

For reference, this is the format of a single line of the output, where the whitespace comes from tabs:

8  December  2015  14:10:50  8  December  2015  14:20:00

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

Much more efficient than post-processing the dates is to just define the Format string using sprintf:

fmt = sprintf('d\tMMMM\tyyyy\tHH:mm:ss');
datetime(..., 'Format',fmt)

[Bruce Elliott]

Ah ha! - That's exactly what I wanted, but I hadn't tried embedding the tab characters themselves into the format string. Thank you!

Answer 2

[Bruce Elliott]

Here's my own answer:

myString = regexprep(char(myDateTime),' ','\t');

That seems to work and isn't too painful, if you don't mind regular expressions.