[ESS] Slow help culprit found!

[Martin Maechler]

On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 12:35, Vitaie S. <spinuvit.list at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> spinuvit.list at gmail.com (Vitalie S.) writes:
>> The rationale of calling that function in `ess-find-help-file', is somewhat
>> elusive to me:
>>
>> (ess-uniq-list (append (ess-g     et-help-files-list)
>>                        (ess-get-help-aliases-list)
>>                        (mapcar 'list
>>                                (ess-get-object-list
>>                                 ess-current-process-name))))
>>
>> It examines only *attached* packages, and thus, brings only duplication
>> (anything else?) of already comprehensive (but efficient) `ess-get-object-list'.
>> Moreover , `ess-get-help-aliases-list' does not cache anything and rereads all
>> the RDS files each time one calls \C-c\C-v.
>
> Well, I see now (after removing ess-get-help-aliases-list) that there are topics
> in help not associated with any object.

well, of course,  that's why  this was a new *feature*  (in ESS 5.9.1
which is a while old,
why did nobody till now "complain" ?),  really quite important for
consistent help page searching.

> Then, maybe `ess-get-help-aliases-list' can be changed to cache the output, and
> update only if search path was changed, akin to how `ess-get-object-list' works.

Yes, that's a good idea,  ... patches are welcome  ;-)
.. or another ESS core member has more time than I have currently ..

Thanks for the feedback, Vitally!
Martin
>
> Vitalie.
>
> ______________________________________________
> ESS-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/ess-help
>
>