[ESS] R function arguments tips

[Dan Davison]

I was going to make two points that Gregor has just made, so I'd like to register my agreement below:

On Fri, Aug 24, 2007 at 08:59:53PM +0200, Gregor Gorjanc wrote:
> Hello Martin,
> 
> Sorry for late posting.
> 
> Martin Maechler wrote:
> > Hi Gregor,
> > 

<...>

> This is what I thought ess-r-args-auto-show will do, but I get ARGS in 
> echo area only for the first time of pressing ( and a double ^M after 
> it. Then after pressing ayn key echo area clears. It would be nice to 
> get ARGS, whenever on is within () of a function. Maybe I want too much. 

I agree with this, it would be even more useful for the ARGS to persist until ')' closes the function call (or until '(' opens a nested function call...). I only seem to be able to remember one argument at a time...

> For now I just added keybinding for ess-r-args-show so I am happy;) This 
> is much more convenient than calling ?function or args(function) every 
> time I forget what are the argument names.
> 
> Finnaly, I think that it would be beneficial to show tips also in *R* 
> buffer. I also believe in the source file and agree with you, but 
> sometimes I just have to do something fast and temporary in the *R* 
> buffer and ... It is a pitty that such a helpful function would be 
> limited to R-mode buffer.

I agree. I adhere pretty strictly to the 'source files are real' mode, but R is sufficiently usable that sometimes one just wants to do something in R without needing to keep a record. ess-r-show-args is really useful, so I would vote for it to be available in both situations.

Dan

> 
> Thank you again for providing this in ESS.
> 
> Regards, Gregor
> 
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