[texhax] Some puzzling TeX

[Heiko Oberdiek]

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 12:44:25PM +1300, Rod Harries wrote:

> I am trying to understand why  one would write
> 
> \def\:{\let\@sptoken= } \: %
> 
> instead of just \let\@sptoken=   %

* \let allows an optional space after the equals sign.]
* TeX merges successive spaces and ignores spaces
  at the beginning of a line.

It can also be done without an extra definition:

\@firstofone{\let\@sptoken= } %

Yours sincerely
  Heiko Oberdiek