[ESS] ess-insert-function-outline

[Alex Branham]

Hi Patrick,

On Wed 02 May 2018 at 04:30, Patrick Connolly <p_connolly using slingshot.co.nz> wrote:

> After many years of loyal service, ess-insert-function-outline has
> stopped working.  I get the message:
>
> Symbol's function definition is void: ess-insert-function-outline
>
> During my recent issue with the R dump function (not an ESS issue as
> it turns out) I might have inadvertantly modified something, but only
> .emacs and .Rprofile were involved AFAIR and I don't notice anything
> when comparing old versions of those files.  It might be a coincidence
> that I had been dealing with the buffer created by
> ess-dump-object-into-edit-buffer but with nothing else to go on, it appears
> slightly more likely to be the source of the problem.
>
>
> I have the function-outline.S file in $ESS-HOME/etc/ directory where
> it has always worked.  What conveys the instructions to 'insert' it?
> If I try the same in an Emacs window that has been running for several
> weeks, i.e. before I tinkered with .emacs and .Rprofile, it works as
> it has always done.  What does that fact tell us?

It looks like ess-insert-function-outline was retired to the old/
directory, so it isn't defined in newer ESS versions. I'm guessing you
updated ESS while tinkering with .emacs/.Rprofile?

I never used it myself, but it looks like it's supposed to insert a
function skeleton? If that's the case, there are a few replacements you
can use, including the builtin skeleton.el or yasnippet, available on
ELPA.

Hope that helps,
Alex