Given a macro definition like \newcommand{\answer}{\emph{42}}, do
They realized that \answer{} is the answer to everything.
and
They realized that \answer\ is the answer to everything.
always produce the same output?
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\newcommand{\answer}{\emph{42}\xspace}. see Macros for common abbreviations – barbara beeton May 31 '13 at 12:26\xspacemight have some merits, see http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/86565/drawbacks-of-xspace – egreg May 31 '13 at 12:30\nonfrenchspacingis in force and the replacement text of the macro ends with a period (or other punctuation), because\always inserts a normal (non sentence ending) space. – egreg May 31 '13 at 12:35... {\answer} ...; this is "neutral" regarding frenchspacing, and doesn't have the disadvantages of\xspacepointed out by egreg. – barbara beeton May 31 '13 at 12:48\answer\ist more convenient to type for me. – fefrei May 31 '13 at 13:31babelissuesfrenchspacing, so the problem disappears when writing in German. – egreg May 31 '13 at 13:43~behaves differently. Apart from that, this really is a duplicate. – fefrei May 31 '13 at 14:31