I would like to generate a log file with tab separated columns. It should have the following format with tab separated output for all but the comment field

```
time        date        alias   comment
10:09:20    03/06/13    jre     This is a test comment

```

I am using csh for historical purposes

```
set time = `perl -MPOSIX -e 'print POSIX::strftime("%T", localtime)'`
set date = `perl -MPOSIX -e 'print POSIX::strftime("%d/%m/%y", localtime)'`
set alias = jre
set comment = "This is a test comment"

```

Piping my text to `column -t`

```
echo "time\tdate\talias\tcomment" | column -t > somefile
echo "$time\t$date\t$alias\t$comment" | column -t >> tt

```

I get almost what I want. However, the spaces in my comment field are also changed to tabs. Is there a way I can tab separate the first 3 fields but maintain space separation in the comments field?