David

 > > so does yours i think, or how was your proposal meant?
 >
 > It was supposed to hit at \label time.  But since putting a label

i still don't see how that would work without starting to rewrite the code for
\label which would be awfully dangerous and error prone. so if i overlook
something obvious i would be interested to see how you would go for it. as i
understand your code fragment it only hits at \ref time

 > inside of a figure in order to get a \pageref would be legal...

indeed, which why i think my approach is better than attempting to make that
\label an error.

 > >  > > any suggestion for a good text?
 > >  >
 > >  > \label{whatever} without preceding or enclosing \caption.
 > >  > Labels must follow the item they are referencing.
 > >
 > > well "whatever" is not known when we generate that text, is it?
 >
 > Probably not.  But doesn't \label use something like \protected@edef
 > before \write?  If the label name at that time was stored in some
 > macro, it should be possible to have it written out as part of the
 > text.

but not by the time you see the \ref. and trying to acpture it at \label time
means you have to deal with actually getting the right label text on top of
the problem that you really don't want to make \label's for \pageref's illegal

frank
 >
 > --
 > David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum