def fill_with_tabs(text, tab_col):
    """Adds tabs to a string until a certain column is reached.

    :Parameters:
      - `text`: the string that should be expanded to a certain column
      - `tab_col`: the tabulator column to which should be filled up.  It is *not*
        a character column, so a value of, say, "4" means character column 32.

    :type text: string
    :type tab_col: int

    :Return:
      - The expanded string, i.e., "text" plus one or more tabs.

    :rtype: string
    """
    number_of_tabs = tab_col - len(text.expandtabs()) / 8
    return text + max(number_of_tabs, 1) * "\t"