[ESS] R - Help buffer

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "gj" == gerald jean <gerald.jean at dgag.ca>
>>>>>     on Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:44:04 -0400 writes:

    gj> ess-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch a écrit sur 2008/10/20 11:07:29 :

    >> gerald.jean at dgag.ca wrote:
    >> 
    >> > But when I run R through ESS, C-c C-v will still prompt
    >> > me for a help topic but when I type a topic what shows
    >> > up in the *help[R] fct. name* buffer is:
    >> >
    >> > Error in help("glm", pager = "slynx -dump", window = F) :
    >> >   unused argument(s) (window = FALSE)
    >> >
    >> > I tried setting the "pager" and the "help.pager"
    >> > options to "emacsclient", as they are when running
    >> > Splus but to no avail, I still get the same error.
    >> 
    >> hmmm... there may be leakage from the lisp code for splus help into the
    >> lisp code  for R help help; R shouldn't need the pager to be set, and so
    >> seeing pager = 'sylnx -dump' is the probable cause of the error.
    >> 
    >> Can you try a new emacs session, start R and then try C-c
    >> C-v?  (i.e. don't start S).  Also, take out any settings
    >> for pager and help.pager from your .emacs, if it still
    >> doesn't work.

    gj> I restarted Emacs, did not start Splus and started R: same result as
    gj> before.

    gj> I am not seeing any settings for "pager" and "help.pager" in my .emacs?

In any case, the  'pager = "slynx -dump"'  part is definitely
the culprit and it definitely is a leak from "S+ code for ESS"
(I'm pretty sure I had added to ESS aeons ago).

So, something in your Emacs initialization (typically inside
~/.emacs, but there are other possibilities) is the culprit.

Try the following:

1) Start Emacs
2) M-x R
3) C-h v ess-customize-alist

Should give about 20 lines of output in a *Help* buffer.
One of these 20+ lines is particularly interesting; for me it is

 (inferior-ess-help-command . "help(\"%s\", htmlhelp=FALSE)\n")

and I bet that for you, it will contain the ominous "slynx ..."
part. 
yes ?

Martin