Making custom loaders expl3-aware

The expl3 syntax used by the developing programming layer for LaTeX3 is rather different from ‘traditional’ TeX syntax, and therefore needs to be turned on and off using the command pair \ExplSyntaxOn/\ExplSyntaxOff. In package code making use of expl3, the structure

\ExplSyntaxOn % Or implicit from \ProvidesExplPackage
....
\usepackage{somepackage}
....
\ExplSyntaxOff % Or the end of the package

will switch off expl3 syntax for the loading of somepackage and so will work whether this dependency uses expl3 or not.

This is achieved by using the LaTeX2e kernel mechanism \@pushfilename/@popfilename, which exists to deal with the status of @ but which is extended by expl3 to cover the new syntax too. However, this only applies as standard to code loaded using \usepackage (or the lower-level kernel command \@onefilewithoptions). Some bundles, most notable TikZ, provide their own loader commands for specialised files. These can be made ‘expl3-aware’ by including the necessary kernel commands

\def\myloader#1{%
  \@pushfilename
  \xdef\@currname{#1}%
  % Main loader, including \input or similar
  \@popfilename
}

For packages which also work with formats other than LaTeX, the push and pop steps can be set up using \csname

\def\myloader#1{%
  \csname @pushfilename\expandafter\endcsname
  \expandafter\xdef\csname @currname\endcsname{#1}%
  % Main loader, including \input or similar
  \csname @popfilename\endcsname
}

Of course, that will only work with LaTeX (the stack is not present in plain TeX or ConTeXt), but as the entire package idea is essentially a LaTeX one that should be a small problem.