[ESS] r-related question: editing NAMESPACEd functions in packages

[Vitalie Spinu]

On 7 November 2011 21:42, Stephen Eglen <S.J.Eglen at damtp.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> Thanks Gavin, Steve.  I'll check out these ideas, but it sounds like
> there's some work needed (or too much to worry about for now) to get
> ess-eval-defun and friends to take care of these extra steps.
>

What could be actually done at ESS side is to introduce the notions of
user-mode and developer-mode.

 - user-mode is usual ESS as we know it.
 - developer-mode makes ess-eval-function (and frends) search for the
function name in all the attached packages (even if hidden).
   If found, assign by means of 'assignInNamespace', otherwise just as
usual assign it in .GlobalEnv.

So whenever you work on your package(s), just activate developer-mode,
when finished switch it off.

Would not require much to implement -  a couple of ess-command , one
developer/user-mode switcher + mode-line indicator.

Vitalie.