[ESS-bugs] ess-mode 5.2.7; cannot get help for contour()

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "StEgl" == Stephen Eglen <S.J.Eglen at damtp.cam.ac.uk>
>>>>>     on Mon, 4 Jul 2005 15:17:09 +0100 writes:

    >> 
    >> > options("help.try.all.packages" = TRUE)
    >> > ?rlm
    >> 
    >> you get an  *help[R](rlm)*  buffer with the content
    >> 
    >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >> Help for topic 'rlm' is not in any loaded package but can be found in the
    >> following packages:
    >> 
    >> Package               Library
    >> MASS                  /u/maechler/R/D/r-devel/64-linux-inst/library
    >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >> 
    >> Now if the user consequently loads MASS :
    >> 
    >> > library(MASS)
    >> 
    >> and types
    >> 
    >> > ?rlm
    >> 
    >> again, I would have wanted that  the previous *help[R](rlm)*
    >> buffer was considered  'bogous' and hence a new buffer would be
    >> written with the correct content  {the real help on rlm() in MASS}.

    StEgl> Thanks.  Now I see the problem.  

    StEgl> One solution might be for the lisp to parse the help buffer; if it
    StEgl> begins with 

    StEgl> Help for topic '...' is not in any loaded package but can be found in the
    StEgl> following packages:

    StEgl> then we can rename the buffer, e.g. to *help[R](rlm in packages)*

    StEgl> so that presumably if MASS is then loaded, a call to "?rlm" will then
    StEgl> create the new buffer *help[R](rlm)* rather than try to re-use the old
    StEgl> one (since the old one will have a different name).

yes, that would be nice to have such a renaming ...

    StEgl> Going back to the code:

    StEgl> ;; search in first nr-first (default 120) chars only
    StEgl> (and nil (if (not nr-first) (setq nr-first 120)))

    StEgl> should we put that check back in so that regular help files are not
    StEgl> labelled as bogus just for having the text "no documention" in them
    StEgl> after the first couple of lines?

    StEgl> If the above sounds sensible, I'll add some test code.

Yes, from my point of view it sounds sensible

and BTW, I still don't understand why anyone (maybe me - late
night ??) would add an '(and nil ...........)' clause without
also adding a comment about why this  has been transformed into a
no-op.

Martin