[ESS] filename completion problem

[Martin Maechler]

I try to summarize what I've learned till now:

Giovanni did and said the following:

 - uses R 2.0.1 and Emacs 21.3.1 under Debian Sarge.

 - tried both the packaged version of ESS (ess-5.2.5-1 "debian")
   and the tar.gz (5.2.6) manually configured as indicated in the README.

 - ``When I press tab to complete a filename the
       answer is "Wrong type argument: stringp, nil" ''

 - `` ESC TAB gives the same problem. 
      C-c TAB apparently has no effect. ''

 - `` if I press "Complete File Name" in the Complete menu, it
      works fine! ''

- - - -

But you didn't tell us *when* this happens: 
Are you inside a *R* buffer, or are you editing a *.R file
(as you should be doing 95% of the time ;-)

Also, I found myself that it's pretty hard *not* to use a
debian-installed ESS version -- it's directory is added to the
emacs load path ``long before'' a user ~/.emacs or any user "M-x
..." command comes into play.  

Did you uninstall the debian ess package before using the
*.tar.gz one?  If you didn't, I'm pretty sure you were still
using the debian one even though you explicitly loaded another
ess-site.el file.

Try  
     M-x locate-library  ess

to find out from where emacs is getting the ESS parts.

Regards,
Martin