On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 09:36:09PM +0200, Frank Mittelbach wrote: > Hi Heiko, > > > LaTeX2e uses \zap@space to remove the spaces in the option lists. > > As a side effect \zap@space also removes the braces around the > > comma, because the group is followed immediately after a space: > > since you already looked at the different implementations, any suggestion on > how to best improve the LaTeX2e behaviour? Because of the frozen nature of LaTeX2e I don't expect that LaTeX2e is/can/will improved. In the next postings you have already answered it that way. Example, preserving spaces in option names (with or without around equals) will break, for instance: \documentclass[a4 paper, 12 pt]{documentclass} My recommendation for package authors that use key value interfaces is to provide a \<package>setup command for setting the options and getting rid of the option limitations of LaTeX2e. Also setting options in \usepackage makes problems with option clashes more likely, especially if the package is already loaded without options. Another problem is that the option share the same namespace. Global options can trigger wanted and unwanted actions in different packages, that knows the same option. That's even more problematic for key value options, where the packages interprete the same keys, but the values with different syntax. Yours sincerely Heiko <[log in to unmask]>