Is @ necessary when capital letters are enclosed in a command?

Question

Normally, when a sentence ends in a capital letter, the space following the period is treated like a normal space. To get an end-of-sentence space, you must put @ before the period.
Is this also required if the capital letter is enclosed in a command, such as emph{}, texttt{}, or textbf{}?
For example:
The pointer cannot be texttt{NULL}. There is one exception:

vs.
The pointer cannot be texttt{NULL}@. There is one exception:

egreg · Answer

An image is worth many words.

The assignment of the space factor code is global, so whether or not you change fonts or use groups, after the last L the space factor code would be 999, meaning that the period would be interpreted as following an uppercase letter.
I set a very large xspaceskip in order to emphasize the effect produced by the space factor after a period, which is 3000 if it was 1000 or more before it.
So @ is necessary.

Is @ necessary when capital letters are enclosed in a command?

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