[ESS] R function arguments tips

[Stephen Eglen]

Dear Dan,

 > > 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...

What you need is ess-eldoc.el -- it is shipped with ESS 5.3.5 but not
turned on by default, as it requires GNU Emacs 22.   If you have GNU
Emacs 22, then add

(require 'ess-eldoc)  

to your .emacs, (e.g. after loading ess-site) and restart.  Visit an R
buffer, and associate with a *R* process, e.g. using C-c C-s

Then as you move over R function calls (and within them), you should
see the args list printed in the echo area.  (ELDOC stands for Elisp
documentation, and emacs lisp has had this neat feature for many
years.)

I'd be interested to hear from users who try ess-eldoc, and who have
GNU Emacs 22 running.



Stephen