Stephen Bond writes:
> Is there a way to comment out a whole region in ESS similar to the emacs
> capability in C and Fortran modes?
You should find that the same commenting commands apply in ESS to
those in C, e.g. M-; and M-x comment-region
Stephen
File: ess.info, Node: Indenting, Next: Other edit buffer commands,
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7.5 Indenting and formatting S code
===================================
ESS now provides a sophisticated mechanism for indenting S source code
(thanks to Ken'ichi Shibayama). Compound statements (delimited by `{'
and `}') are indented relative to their enclosing block. In addition,
the braces have been electrified to automatically indent to the correct
position when inserted, and optionally insert a newline at the
appropriate place as well. Lines which continue an incomplete
expression are indented relative to the first line of the expression.
Function definitions, `if' statements, calls to `expression()' and loop
constructs are all recognized and indented appropriately. User
variables are provided to control the amount if indentation in each
case, and there are also a number of predefined indentation styles to
choose from.
Comments are also handled specially by ESS, using an idea borrowed
from the Emacs-Lisp indentation style. By default, comments beginning
with `###' are aligned to the beginning of the line. Comments
beginning with `##' are aligned to the current level of indentation for
the block containing the comment. Finally, comments beginning with `#'
are aligned to a column on the right (the 40th column by default, but
this value is controlled by the variable `comment-column',) or just
after the expression on the line containing the comment if it extends
beyond the indentation column. You turn off the default behavior by
adding the line `(setq ess-fancy-comments nil)' to your `.emacs' file.
The indentation commands provided by ESS are:
* `TAB' (`ess-indent-command')
Indents the current line as S code. If a prefix argument is given,
all following lines which are part of the same (compound)
expression are indented by the same amount (but relative indents
are preserved).
* `RET' (`newline-and-indent')
`LFD' (_newline-and-indent_)
Insert a newline, and indent the next line. (Note that most
keyboards nowadays do not have a <LINEFEED> key, but `C-j' is
equivalent.)
* `ESC C-q' aka `M-C-q' aka `C-M-q' (`ess-indent-exp')
Indents each line in the S (compound) expression which follows
point. Very useful for beautifying your S code.
* `{' and `}' (`ess-electric-brace')
The braces automatically indent to the correct position when typed.
* `M-;' (`indent-for-comment')
Indents an existing comment line appropriately, or inserts an
appropriate comment marker.
* `M-x ess-set-style'
Set the formatting style in this buffer to be one of the predefined
styles: `GNU', `BSD', `K&R', `CLB', and `C++'. The `DEFAULT'
style uses the default values for the indenting variables (unless
they have been modified in your `.emacs' file.) This command
causes all of the formatting variables to be buffer-local.