[texhax] Some puzzling TeX (\@sptoken)

[Donald Arseneau]

"Uwe Lueck" <uwe.lueck at web.de> writes:

> As I sometimes do (not knowing if this is allowed),
> I then searched texbook.tex in a text editor and found
> that the above quote continues (very next paragraph):
> "The quantity <space token>, which was used in the syntax of <optional
> spaces> above, stands for an explicit or implicit space. In other words,
> it denotes either a character token of category 10, or a control sequence
> or active character whose current meaning has been made equal to such a
> token by \let or \futurelet."
> 
> What seems *not to be said explicitly*, indeed!! (see
> announcement above), is that <one optional space>
> may be an implicit space token. (Of course it is said
> *implicitly*.)

<one optional space> is defined in terms of <space token>.
That is on page 269 and you would do well to read it in
the book instead of searching for what *might* be the 
corresponding manmac input text.

Is that what you mean by "implicitly"?  It would be ridiculous
to keep repeating a statement for every syntactical construct
that included the <space token>!



Donald Arseneau                          asnd at triumf.ca