Frank Mittelbach <[log in to unmask]> writes:

> David Kastrup writes:
>
>  > 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,

I doubt it.  From ltxref.dtx:

%    The internal form of |\newlabel| and |\bibcite|. Note that this
%    macro does it's work inside a group. That way the local
%    assignments it needs to do don't clutter the save stack. This
%    prevents large documents with many labels to run out of save
%    stack.
% \changes{v1.1h}{1995/10/24}{Switch for multiplelabels replaced by
%    inline code}
% \changes{v1.1k}{2001/02/16}{Added an extra grouplevel (PR3250), jlb}
%    \begin{macrocode}
\def\@newl@bel#1#2#3{{%
  \@ifundefined{#1@#2}%
    \relax
    {\gdef \@multiplelabels {%
       \@latex@warning@no@line{There were multiply-defined labels}}%
     \@latex@warning@no@line{Label `#2' multiply defined}}%
  \global\@namedef{#1@#2}{#3}}}
%    \end{macrocode}

So obviously somebody ran into this problem before.  But only half of it
got fixed.

> 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.

For restoring \@newl@bel's definition afterwards.  Don't ask me why it
could be needed.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum