Should a \CharacterTable still be used in dtx files?

Question

My understanding of the use of a \CharacterTable in .dtx files is that it provides a visual check that the file was transmitted properly and there were no issues with character encodings.

Is it still necessary? I notice quite a few class and package authors include it after the \endinput line in order to minimize the visual clutter at the beginning of the file. Is this considered good practice?

Answer 1

Today files are typically distributed over HTTP and FTP, not e-mail or similar services that have to encode and decode binary (or even text) data. So, character translation failure is much less likely, and \CharacterTable could safely be omitted in modern packages. However, it does occasionally catch random errors.

You shouldn't put it after \endinput, because it is intended to be processed by doc (which compares the table to a valid one), not just visually examined by the reader.

Additional note: some people prefer not to put the table in the generated file (because it is almost of no use there), and thus don't prefix the table lines with %%, but with a mere %.