[NTG-context] texmfstart fails silently on incorrect input

[Hans Hagen]

Aditya Mahajan wrote:
>
>   
>> 2) Is whitespace not allowed before or after when defining with or using
>> the "=" sign?
>>     
>
>
> Parially, space after = is fine, space before = is ignored silently.
>   
changing that would break things (esp when a space is set this way, and 
not using \space)
> This is because with
>
> \dosetvalue {one}{a}{ b}
>
> \onea is defined,
>
> while with
>
> \dosetvalue {one}{a }{ b}
> \onea is undefined.
>
> Hans, can \dosetvalue be defined to ignore the space of #2, something 
> like
>
> \unprotect
> \def\dosetvalue#1#2#3%
>    {\dodosetvalue{#1}[#2]#3}
>
>    \def\dodosetvalue#1[#2#3]#4%
>    {\doifelse{#3}{\space}
>      {\@EA\def\csname#1#2\endcsname{#4}}
>      {\@EA\def\csname#1#2#3\endcsname{#4}}}
>
>
> With this
>
> \dosetvalue {one}{a }{ b}
> (\onea)
>
> works, but this does not work for
>
> \definestartstop
>    [abstract]
>    [before = {{\bf Abstract}}]
>   
indeed; if supported, this would have to take place in the comma list 
parser and the base assignment which would slow down things a lot

>
> I do not know the implication in terms of speed. In case there is a 
> heavy penality, one can have a switch to ignore spaces in value 
> assignments.
>   
hm, maybe some day (such changes would demand much testing) and will be easier to do once we have lua enhanced tex (end of year) 

Hans 

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