I'm not sure I follow. What I was proposing is a very localized thing. May be it's similar to proposing that in the optional argument of figures spaces could be allowed `\begin{figure}[h t b p]` (I think that might be the current behaviour), does that “add to the mess”? This is again, very localized, keys in key=value pars to ignore whitespace, I don't think that could be a problem, really. There could be counterarguments that I can't think of, and that's why I posted here. But I think that “adds to the mess” is not really a problem here. For instance, this is an usual way of inputting configuration to {listings} package. \lstset{ numbers=left, numberstyle=\scriptsize, tabsize=4, rulecolor=, language=java, basicstyle=\scriptsize, upquote=true, aboveskip={1.5\baselineskip}, columns=fixed, showstringspaces=false } what would be the risk of enabling this to also work (and all the other whitespace combinations) \lstset{ numbers=left, number style=\scriptsize, tab size=4, rule color=, language=java, basic style=\scriptsize, upquote=true, above skip={1.5\baselineskip}, columns=fixed, show string spaces=false } Personally, I think the risk (and mess) of doing this is practically zero. It only adds flexibility. 2015-10-24 19:01 GMT+02:00 Nelson H. F. Beebe <[log in to unmask]>: > Manuel Blanco <[log in to unmask]> proposes allowing spaces in LaTeX > l3keys variable names to be ignored. > > I think that this is a BAD THING; Fortran did, and still does, it, but > almost all programming languages designed since Fortran disallow it, > and for good reasons. > > TeX already has too many ambiguities such as: > > \foo \bar execute \foo then execute \bar > \foo \bar execute \foo with \bar as its argument > \foo \bar assign \bar to \foo > > Making spaces insignificant would add to the mess. > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > - Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 - > - University of Utah FAX: +1 801 581 4148 - > - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB Internet e-mail: [log in to unmask] - > - 155 S 1400 E RM 233 [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] - > - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ - > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------