[ESS] ... when editing R documents, 'delete' key behaves as 'backspace'

[Rodney Sparapani]

Sebastian P. Luque wrote:
> On Wed, 3 Dec 2008 14:48:00 +0100,
> Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Seb,
>>>>>>> "SebL" == Sebastian P Luque <spluque at gmail.com> on Mon, 01 Dec
>>>>>>> 2008 17:26:32 -0600 writes:
> 
> [...]
> 
>> *DEVELOPMENT* version ..  This is not yet released!
> 
>> We still have an outstanding bug report "catastrophic ESS behavior in
>> Rnw-mode" and now this one ...
> 
> Right, I'm using the ess Debian sid (upstream SVN) package that Dirk
> Eddelbuettel kindly provides.  Haven't yet used Rnw-mode with this
> version, but the <delete> key issue is certainly not catastrophic! :-)
> One can just do the standard 'C-d' to delete forward in the meantime.
> 
> 
> SebL> I see inconsistent behaviour of the <delete> key.  In ESS mode,
> SebL> this key calls `backward-delete-char-untabify', but in inferior
> SebL> ESS mode it calls `delete-char' (i.e. forward deletion).  It used
> SebL> to do the latter in both cases in my system (GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1
> SebL> (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.12.11) of 2008-11-29 on
> SebL> elegiac, modified by Debian).  I can't see the relevant change in
> SebL> the docs.  What has happened on this front?
> 
>> Well, IIRC, we had responded to one bug report on this topic, and had
>> only seen "improved behavior" after the fix, but my memory may be
>> completely wrong.
> 
> Maybe you mean the thread I followed up to?
> 
> 
>> Note that Emacs 23.0.60.1 is definitely a development version, if
>> that's the only one that shows the problem you see, it does not yet
>> mean that there's a bug in ESS, it (probably) just means there's a
>> bug...
> 
> The problem is also there with the released GNU Emacs 22.2.1
> (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars) of 2008-11-09 on
> excelsior, modified by Debian.
> 
> I'll try to track this down in the source when I have a chance, so any
> pointers as to where to look would help.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> 

Hi Sebastian:

I don't see where that behavior is coming from, but can you try:

(define-key inferior-ess-mode-map  [delete] 'backward-delete-char-untabify)

-- 
Rodney Sparapani      Center for Patient Care & Outcomes Research (PCOR)
Sr. Biostatistician              http://www.mcw.edu/pcor
4 wheels good, 2 wheels better!  Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW)
WWLD?:  What Would Lombardi Do?  Milwaukee, WI, USA