[texhax] The details of \csname, in this specific case

[Uwe Lück]

Am Dienstag, den 26.02.2013, 11:40 +0100 schrieb Martin Schröder:
> 2013/2/26 Uwe Lück <uwe.lueck at web.de>:
> > Am Montag, den 25.02.2013, 21:46 +0100 schrieb Reinhard Kotucha:
> >> On 2013-02-25 at 19:35:22 +0100, Uwe Lück wrote:
> >> $ tex -ini \\relax
> >> This is TeX, Version 3.1415926 (TeX Live 2012) (INITEX)
> >>
> >> *\showthe\catcode 222
> >> > 12.
> >> <*> \showthe\catcode 222
> >
> > Hm, hm. Are TeX Live's formats for "latex" and "pdflatex" made with
> > that INITEX? where is the e-TeX?
> 
> "tex" is supposed to be DEKs program - he would be very unhappy otherwise.
> "etex", "latex" and "pdflatex" default to pdfTeX.

Thanks, great to learn. I dared to look at the fucking TeX Live manual 
for the first time in my life, and in the history for 2004 I found:

    pdfetex is now the default engine for all formats 
    except (plain) tex itself.

I have not dared to see further whether that policy changed later.

I have dared to try Reinhard's 

    <cmd> \\showthe\\catcode222

for <cmd> from etex -ini, latex, pdflatex, ... indeed always got 12.

Cheers,

    Uwe.