How do I set tabs in textFrames with tabStops?

I see that overnight the JavaScript heavyweights have waded in. Thanks Guys. It seems I can't edit my original post now, so I'm having to reply to it.

From what I gather you are saying, I can't create a tabs with a script. But maybe if my template document had a text box containing tabs I could copy the paragraph attributes to a new paragraph and them manipulate the TabStop.position value.  Would that be the way to proceed?

Carlos, you asked to see what I'd done so far so here it is!  As you will see I'm an enthusiastic novice with a lot to learn when it comes to javascript, so any comments or suggested improvements anyone cares to make would be most welcome.

I am creating ai files containing text and graphic elements created from data in a XML file, mostly these are tabular data. Below is the function that handles the text elements.

function layOutText(ele){

    var eleText;

    if (ele.@type=="area") {

        var rectRef = doc.pathItems.rectangle(ele.position[0]/1, ele.position[1]/1, ele.size[0]/1, ele.size[1]/1);

        eleText = doc.textFrames.areaText(rectRef);       

        if (ele.@class=="dataTabbed"){

            var dataArray= new Array ();

            eleText.contents=splitDataString(ele.value.toString());//this is a call to a function that splits and puts in the command characters for the tabs and

            eleText.paragraphs[0].paragraphAttributes.tabStops.length=ele.tab.length();

            for (tab=0; tab<ele.tab.length(); tab++){

             eleText.paragraphs[0].paragraphAttributes.tabStops[tab].tabStopsInfo.position=ele.tab[tab];// this doesn't work

                }

            }

        else {

            eleText.contents= ele.value.toString ();

            }

        if (eleText.paragraphs)eleText.paragraphs[0].hyphenation=false;

        }

    else {

        eleText = doc.textFrames.add();

        eleText.position=[ele.position[0]/1, ele.position[1]/1];

        eleText.contents= ele.value.toString ();

        }

    eleText.textRange.characterAttributes.textFont=app.textFonts.getByName(ele.fontStyle.font.toString());

    eleText.textRange.characterAttributes.fillColor=giveColor(ele.fontStyle.colour.toString());

    if (ele.justification.@type=="center") eleText.paragraphs[0].justification = Justification.CENTER;

    }

I am passing it a XML objects that prints out something like

<textElement type="area" class="dataTabbed">

  <value>Benefit t £9,600 t 40% t 23% r Clarins t £7,000 t 10% t -13% r Dior Beaute t £4,500 t 5% t 26% r No7 t £21,500 t -10% t -16% r YSL t £3,200 t -20% t 37%</value>

  <tab type="left">400</tab>

  <tab type="left">600</tab>

  <tab type="left">800</tab>

  <tab type="left">1000</tab>

  <tab type="left">1500</tab>

  <position type="top">275</position>

  <position type="left">10</position>

  <size type="width">350</size>

  <size type="height">140</size>

  <justification type="left"/>

  <fontStyle class="data">

    <font>Tahoma</font>

    <size>11</size>

    <colour>black</colour>

  </fontStyle>

</textElement>

Thank you.

I didn't get it to work, but I haven't covered all possibilities yet, what seems to work is to apply a paragraph style with your tab info in it....now, I'm having a hard time creating the paragraph style with the tab info.

post what you have so far

You can get info about existing Tab Stops from the Paragraph Attributes but I see no way of setting them by script.