[ESS] r-related question: editing NAMESPACEd functions in packages

[Vitalie Spinu]

On 7 November 2011 23:43, Richard M. Heiberger <rmh at temple.edu> wrote:
>>  - developer-mode makes ess-eval-function (and frends) search for the
>> function name in all the attached packages (even if hidden).
>>   If found, assign by means of 'assignInNamespace', otherwise just as
>> usual assign it in .GlobalEnv.
>
> this will be fabulous.
> I don't think you should be looking in "all the attached packages".
> You should look only in the specific namespace that you told ESS to use.
> Part of the point of namespaces is to allow multiple packages to use the
> same object
> names.  Finding some use of the name somewhere and replacing it would not be
> the
> right thing to do.
>

 How about custom variable 'ess-developer-packages'  to hold the
packages and function 'ess-develpper-add-packages'  to modify this
variable interactively?
ess-developer-packages can be 'all, nil or a list of strings. Should
the default be 'all or nil? Or may be 'all not at all:) Actually risk
of confounding would be minimal if ess-eval-function would explicitly
message the place of assignment.

I will look into the implementation, since I would like to have
something of this kind in my personal setup at least.

Vitalie.