Here is a function that you can use to count the tabs in a records:

--create this function first

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[ufn_CountChar] ( @pInput VARCHAR(1000), @pSearchChar CHAR(1) )

RETURNS INT

BEGIN

RETURN (LEN(@pInput) - LEN(REPLACE(@pInput, @pSearchChar, '')))

END

GO

--counts the nbr tabs in string

PRINT [dbo].[ufn_CountChar]('aaaaaaaaa',char(9) )