[ESS-bugs] ?names<-

[Vitalie Spinu]

  >> Martin Maechler <maechler at stat.math.ethz.ch>
  >> on Tue, 11 Sep 2012 12:58:32 +0200 wrote:

  > In ESS devel
  >    ?names<-

  > gives an "infinite loop" (well, until C-g and C-c C-c)
  > whereas

  >    ?"names<-"
  > or ?'names<-'
  > work {though with the slightly ugly double quotes in the buffer  name}.

  > In all previous version of ESS, it did work without the
  > quotes....
  > though it never (I think) did work in  'pure R'  {R in the console}.

  > Note that this is of course related to (but much more important than)
  > the fact that
  >    ?chol-methods
  > no longer works {after  require(Matrix) }
  > but at least the latter quickly gives an error message
  > (similar to pure-R).


Yes, there is no wrapping into help(...) now, everything is passed to
the R as it is. So what works in pure R should work in ESS and vice
versa.

This is simple and consistent. treating every single combination of
foo?bar and foo??bar is an overkill.

  > We have to decide if    ?names<-
  > should give an error
  > or if it should work (as previously, but unlike pure-R which
  > only accepts a quoted version).

R thinks that the above is a continuation statement and waits for the
next line. A relatively easy workaround would be to wrap everything
after ? into quotes. Or may be it can be solved on the R side?

    Vitalie