removing all tabs in sqlplus

I can resolve this problem, but I don't understand why it happens. My task is: (in ksh) - 1st step: Query a number from a DB with sqlplus, - 2nd step: Format some text for a mail, - 3rd step: send a mail with these. This is a part of my code: psnr() { sqlplus -s USR/PASS@PROD $MAILTMP if I want to use this variable *MAILTMP* I must use tr -d '\040\011' what I found here, in stackexchange, 'cause the result without tr will be this: od -c mailtmp.17872.txt 0000000 T o d a y ' s r e s u l t i 0000020 s : \t 1 2 3 4 5 0000040 6 7 \n 0000043 That tab '\t' is what I don't understand: where does it come from, from sqlplus? Possibly DB specificity? (I checked in TOAD, both coloumns are number(18). Maybe the function in ksh have some special features?