[ESS] Getting SAS to start

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "Cameron" == Cameron Hooper <chooper at umich.edu>
>>>>>     on Tue, 4 Oct 2005 11:05:24 -0400 writes:

    Cameron> Hi

    Cameron> After a recent SAS update I needed to change
    Cameron> ess-sas-command to point to the actual executable

there's no 'ess-sas-command' in the ESS lisp files. What do you
really mean?

    Cameron> rather than the script now used to start SAS (as
    Cameron> per 10.7 in the manual). 

Did you really change it in the ESS *sources* ???
You shouldn't touch those, they are ours, the ESS developers ;-) :-)

More seriously: You really shouldn't edit the ESS sources,
but rather put changes into your ~/.emacs  {or a byte-compiled
file you load from your ~/.emacs}, see below.

    Cameron> Now it works fine, but I
    Cameron> was wondering if I can make the change in .emacs
    Cameron> rather than ess-sas-command. 

    Cameron> I'm worried that upgrades will remove the
    Cameron> customization 

exactly. and that's why should not tamper with the sources but
*customize* things properly, see below.

    Cameron> and I will spend a few hours next
    Cameron> time trying to solve this problem again. (Yes, I
    Cameron> have a bad memory!)

What I mean is: Use the menu to Customize ESS, and save the
customizations; this will add the appropriate commands to your ~/.emacs

Alternatively, set variables before or after

     (require 'ess-site)  ;; or (load ..) or whatever you have

by          (setq ........)
or even     (defun ...........)  
But the latter shouldn't be necessary; if it is, it's a ``design
bug'' in ESS, and we'd like to hear about it.

Martin