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Date:         Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:27:23 +0200
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From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Lars_Hellstr=F6m?= <Lars.Hellstrom@RESIDENSET.NET>
Subject: Re: Saving and restoring catcodes
To: LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE
In-Reply-To:  <48D3BE95.3080706@morningstar2.co.uk>
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Status: R

Joseph Wright skrev:
> Hello all,
> 
> In TeX, to save a series of catcodes one might do something like:
> 
> \edef\savedcatcodes{%
>   \catcode\string`\string ` \the\catcode\string`\`\relax
 >   \catcode\string`\string = \the\catcode\string`\=\relax

I'd suggest using \number`= instead of \string`\string=. The `'s are 
just so that you don't have to remember the ASCII codes of characters, 
but decimal digits survive expansion better. In fontinst, a similar 
macro is defined as follows:

\def\a_macro#1{\catcode\number`#1=\the\catcode`#1 }
\edef\normalcc{%
    \a_macro{\ }\a_macro{\^^M}\a_macro{\@}\a_macro{\_}\a_macro{\~}
}

The \normalcc macro ends up expanding to
\catcode32=9 \catcode13=5 \catcode64=12 ...
which should be easier to translate.

Lars Hellström