Hi Lucia,

The problem is the version of ESS that you are using. You need at least 5.5 or greater to use the new R help system.

5.3.10 is about 2 years old and pre-dates the R 2.10.x releases.

HTH,

Marc

On Nov 19, 2010, at 3:13 PM, Lucia Lam wrote:

> Thanks for everyone's suggestions. 
> 
> I've tried Mark's suggestion and I still get the same error message.
> 
> I'm currently using ESS 5.3.10.
> Here's my sessionInfo:
> > sessionInfo()
> R version 2.11.1 (2010-05-31) 
> x86_64-pc-linux-gnu 
> 
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
> 
> I'm guessing my ESS is rather old? My IT guy is away at the moment so we'll try updating ESS once he's back to see if it helps. 
> Unless anyone have any other suggestions at the moment?
> Thanks!
> Lucia
> 
> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 4:42 AM, Marc Schwartz <marc_schwartz@me.com> wrote:
> On Nov 18, 2010, at 7:27 PM, Lucia Lam wrote:
> 
> > Hi everyone,
> > I've just started using Emacs and ESS so please forgive me if this question
> > have been answered elsewhere.
> > In my inferior R, when I type help("mean"), I get the following error
> > message.
> >
> > Errror in help("mean", htmlhelp = FALSE) :
> >  unused argument(s) (htmlhelp = FALSE)
> >
> > Within emacs, none of my help files will open. Whereas the help files work
> > fine in a terminal with R opened.
> > I would like to be able to use the R help files within emacs, ideally with
> > the help file popping open in another frame. Please help!
> >
> > <ess-help@stat.math.ethz.ch>GNU Emacs 23.2.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+
> > Version 2.16.1)
> >> Sys.info()
> > sysname    "Linux"
> > release       "2.6.28-19-generic"
> > version        "#66-Ubuntu SMP Sat Oct 16 18:00:58 UTC 2010"
> > machine      "x86_64"
> >
> > Thanks in advance!
> > Lucia
> 
> 
> Lucia,
> 
> Put the following in your ~/.emacs file:
> 
> (setq inferior-ess-r-help-command "help(\"%s\", help_type=\"html\")\n")
> 
> 
> The argument for html based help changed in R 2.10.0 when the new dynamically generated help pages were implemented.
> 
> 
> HTH,
> 
> Marc Schwartz


	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

