[ESS] trace(zapsmall, edit=TRUE) problem under ESS?

[Spencer Graves]

Hi, Sebastian: 

      Thanks very much for the reply.  Unfortunately, I have not yet 
been able to translate your comments into a successful resolution of the 
problem. 

      I'm currently running GNU Emacs 22.3.1 under Windows, not XEmacs.  
Section "4.9 Using emacsclient" in "ess.info" for ESS 5.3.8 says that 
under Microsoft Windows, ESS sets options(editor="gnuclient.exe") rather 
than options(editor="emacsclient").  I have XEmacs-21.4.20 installed, 
but I recently switched to Emacs for greater compatibility with this 
list.  Part of the problem is that I don't have "gnuclient.exe" 
installed on my hard drive, and I'm not sure what I should do to get 
it.  I also have not yet found how to edit the ESS startup file 
('init.el' or whatever it is). 

      Since the ESS authors changed the default editor from 
options(editor="emacsclient") to options(editor="gnuclient.exe") under 
Windows, I assume that "emacsclient" may have problems with Windows.  
Nevertheless, I tried to change to options(editor="emacsclient") or 
options(editor="emacsclient.exe"), but clearly was not accessed by 
"trace(zapsmall, edit=TRUE)", as shown by the following:     

     
 > options('edit')
$edit
NULL
 > getOption('edit')
NULL
 > .Options$edit
[1] "gnuclient.exe"
 > options(edit='emacsclient.exe')
 > .Options$edit
[1] "emacsclient.exe"
 > options('edit')
$edit
[1] "emacsclient.exe"

 > trace(zapsmall, edit=TRUE)
Error in edit(name, file, title, editor) :
  unable to run editor 'gnuclient.exe'
 > options(edit='emacsclient')
 > .Options$edit
[1] "emacsclient"
 > trace(zapsmall, edit=TRUE)
Error in edit(name, file, title, editor) :
  unable to run editor 'gnuclient.exe'


      Thus, when I changed .Options$edit from "gnuclient.exe" to 
"emacsclient.exe" or "emacsclient", trace(zapsmall, edit=TRUE) still 
tried to access "gnuclient.exe", ignoring the value of .Options$edit. 

      Further suggestions? 
      Thanks very much. 
      Best Wishes,
      Spencer

Sebastian P. Luque wrote:
> Hi Spencer,
>
>
> On Fri, 26 Sep 2008 03:40:50 -0700,
> Spencer Graves <spencer.graves at pdf.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> Hello: I have an ESS problem with an example in Chambers (2008)
>> Software for Data Analysis (Springer, p. 70): He describes using
>> "trace(zapsmall, edit=TRUE)", which gives me the following:
>>     
>
>
>   
>>> trace(zapsmall, edit=TRUE)
>>>       
>> Error in edit(name, file, title, editor) : unable to run editor
>> 'gnuclient.exe'
>>     
>
>
>   
>> 	  I asked John about this.  He replied, "I don't use ESS to run
>> examples, but I recollect this question was discussed on the ESS
>> mailing list."
>>     
>
>   
>> 	  If someone can help me with this, it will likely help more
>> than just me, because it will likely go into a script file in the SoDA
>> package, companion to Chambers (2008), following the Bates model in
>> "system.file('scripts', package='nlme')".
>>     
>
>
> I don't use XEmacs, but I'll take a stab at it since no XEmacs users
> have followed up.  Are you sure gnuclient was started in your XEmacs
> session? Looks like your 'editor' option is set to use that.  I think a
> (gnuserv-start) needs to be called in ~/.emacs or whatever XEmacs uses
> at start-up.  gnuclient might need other things to be set up, so check
> its docs.  With the native Emacs server, I have:
>
> (server-start)
>
> and then in ~/.bashrc:
>
> export EDITOR="emacsclient --alternate-editor emacs +%d %s"
>
> This is surely different with XEmacs and its gnuclient, and under MS
> Windows, but hope it provides some hints.
>
>
>