[ESS] Emacs finding "R" on Windows {was "Release of ESS 5.3.5"}

[Richard M. Heiberger]

I need guidance on the fix.

The new statement
(getenv "ProgramFiles")
in the English locale returns
"C:\\Program Files"
which has an embedded blank and therefore doesn't work in many emacs commands.
That is why I had hard-wired the "c:/progra~1".

The embedded blank breaks all sorts of code, specifically in this
case ess-r-version-date

(ess-r-version-date "c:/Program Files/R/R-2.5.1/bin/Rterm.exe")
("-1" . "c:/Program Files/R/R-2.5.1/bin/Rterm.exe")

(getenv "ProgramFiles")
"C:\\Program Files"

(w32-short-file-name (getenv "ProgramFiles") )
"c:/PROGRA~1"

(ess-r-version-date (concat (getenv "ProgramFiles") "\\R/R-2.5.1/bin/Rterm.exe"))
("-1" . "C:\\Program Files\\R/R-2.5.1/bin/Rterm.exe")

(ess-r-version-date "c:/Progra~1/R/R-2.5.1/bin/Rterm.exe")
("2007-08-01" . "c:/Progra~1/R/R-2.5.1/bin/Rterm.exe")

(ess-r-version-date (w32-short-file-name "c:/Program Files/R/R-2.5.1/bin/Rterm.exe"))
("2007-08-01" . "c:/PROGRA~1/R/R-25~1.1/bin/Rterm.exe")

(ess-r-version-date (concat (w32-short-file-name (getenv "ProgramFiles")) "\\R/R-
2.5.1/bin/Rterm.exe"))
("2007-08-01" . "c:/PROGRA~1\\R/R-2.5.1/bin/Rterm.exe")


The fix is to introduce the w32-short-file-name function.
This works correctly in GNU emacs.  I think from past discussion that it
doesn't work in Xemacs.

I would do it with the definition in ess-cust.el

(defcustom ess-ProgramFiles
  "Safe (no embedded blanks) 8.3 name that works across internationalization."
  (if ess-microsoft-p
      (w32-short-file-name (getenv "ProgramFiles"))
    nil))

one possible way to get around the missing function in xemacs is

(defcustom ess-ProgramFiles
  "Safe (no embedded blanks) 8.3 name that works across internationalization."
  (if ess-microsoft-p
      (if (featurep 'xemacs)
	  (getenv "ProgramFiles")
	(w32-short-file-name (getenv "ProgramFiles")))
    nil))


this doesn't fix the xemacs problem.  it is just keeps it from breaking.