[metapost] strange feature

[Taco Hoekwater]

Karel Horák wrote:
> Dear MP users,
> 
> I have found a strange thing (perhaps bug, perhaps feature?):
> when I start with
> 
> verbatimtex
> %&fmt_name
> etex
> 
> the resulting TeX file cannot be compiled as mpx ends the declared line 
> with two percent signs (I looked into mpxerr.tex). 

This is a bug, but fixing it may have side-effects, so I have a question.

Whitespace surrounding btex/verbatimtex ... etex is stripped away to
prevent the likely user confusion in situations where such whitespace
ends up as spurious spaces in the tex output.

Do the people on this list believe it will be safe if I change mpost
(mpto, really) so that it does not touch the whitespace surrounding the
contents of verbatimtex ... etex? This is almost certainly vertical
mode material so it should be safe, but I would really like some
confirmation before making any changes to mpto.

Cheers,
Taco