deactivating shorthands via \shorthandsspanish does not work

[Udi-Fogiel]

The documentation claims that to deactivate a shorthand globally we can simply add a \spanishdeactivate deceleration to \shorthandsspanish. Did I encounter a bug or did I miss anything?

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[spanish]{babel}
\addto\shorthandsspanish{\spanishdeactivate{>}}

\begin{document}
\showthe\catcode`\>
\show>
\shorthandsspanish
\showthe\catcode`\>
\show>
\stop

Result:

> 13.
l.8 \showthe\catcode`\>
                     

> >=macro:
->\active@prefix >\active@char> .
l.9 \show>
        

> 12.
l.11 \showthe\catcode`\>
                      

> the character >.
l.12 \show>

[Udi-Fogiel]

It does work for ~, should I use es-noquoting to deactivate < and >?

[Udi-Fogiel]

Ok, reading the source code it looks like es-noquoting is the correct way of doing things, perhaps the documentation should be clearer about that. I will keep this ticket open just for confirmation.

[Udi-Fogiel]

If I would like to deactivate < and > by default, but still keep the possibility to activate them for the user, is the following the best method?

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[spanish]{babel}
\deactivatequoting

\begin{document}
...
\end{document}