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Date:         Sat, 8 Mar 2008 00:45:56 +0100
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From: Heiko Oberdiek <oberdiek@UNI-FREIBURG.DE>
Subject: Re: A really, really bad bug.
To: LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE
In-Reply-To:  <18385.42387.268037.81145@morse.mittelbach-online.de>
Precedence: list
Status: R

On Fri, Mar 07, 2008 at 09:29:07PM +0100, Frank Mittelbach wrote:

> David Kastrup writes:
> 
>  > Another possibilities are to remove the grouping from the end of
>  > document action testing the labels. 
> 
> from briefly staring at the code I see no reason why this group is needed at
> all. Does anybody see one why it could make a difference?

You mean the following group?

  \def\enddocument{%
    ...
    \begingroup
      ...
      \input\jobname.aux
      ...
    \endgroup
    ...
  }

Then it isn't known what .aux files may contain (apart from \newlabel).
Many packages write definitions and other stuff in the .aux files.

>  >  Yet another is to perform the
>  > \@ifdefined test within a group of its own, namely as
>  > 
>  > \begingroup \@ifdefined{xxx}{\endgroup...}{\endgroup...}
>  > 
>  > This will also not have the side effect of changing the label internal
>  > to \relax and will avoid save stack buildup.  So it keeps the changed
>  > side effect to a very small area and does not depend on eTeX.  One could
>  > also implement both (which would help with non-eTeX as well), but I
>  > don't think that supporting large documents on non-eTeX that previously
>  > did not work is much of a priority.
>  > 
>  > What is your take?  I find it clearly unsatisfactory to have LaTeX eat
>  > up save stack for newly defined labels like that at the end of the
>  > document.
> 
> well, you seem to be the first person getting into trouble with this, but that
> doesn't mean one shouldn't fix it.
> 
> I don't really mind either of the three solutions (provided none of the kills
> the regression tests for 2e) but personally I would simply drop the group
> unless somebody can give me a good reason why it could be needed in a certain
> situation.

See above, The group is necessary.

Yours sincerely
  Heiko <oberdiek@uni-freiburg.de>