This is the README file for the distribution of ESS version
5.5
ESS is a GNU Emacs and XEmacs mode for interactive statistical programming and data analysis. Languages supported: the S family (S, S-PLUS and R), SAS, BUGS/JAGS, Stata and XLispStat. ESS grew out of the desire for bug fixes and extensions to S-mode and SAS-mode as well as a consistent union of their features in one package.
Installation instructions are provided in sections for both Unix and Windows; see below.
The current development team is led by Martin Maechler since August 2004. Former project leader A.J. (Tony) Rossini (rossini@blindglobe.net) did the initial port to XEmacs and has been the primary coder. Martin Maechler (maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch) and Kurt Hornik (Kurt.Hornik@R-project.org) have assisted with the S family and XLispStat. Stephen Eglen (stephen@gnu.org) has worked mostly on R support. Richard M. Heiberger (rmh@temple.edu) has assisted with S/S-PLUS development for Windows. Richard and Rodney A. Sparapani (rsparapa@mcw.edu) have done much of the work improving SAS batch and interactive support. Rodney has also extended ESS to support BUGS/JAGS and has an interest in improving Stata support.
We are grateful to the previous developers of S-mode (Doug Bates, Ed Kademan, Frank Ritter, David M. Smith), SAS-mode (Tom Cook) and Stata-mode (Thomas Lumley).
ESS is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.
ESS is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License in the file COPYING in the same directory as this file for more details.
All released versions (5.x, x >= 4) are meant to be release-quality versions. While some new features are being introduced, we are cleaning up and improving the interface. We know about some remaining documentation inconsistencies. Patches or suggested fixes with bug reports are much appreciated!
ESS is most likely to work with current/recent versions of the following statistical packages: R/S-PLUS, SAS, Stata and JAGS. The one exception is BUGS which is quite old, but should still work.
ESS supports current/recent versions of GNU Emacs and XEmacs. Most notably, the GNU Emacs 22 series and XEmacs 21.4.14 or higher (beta/pre-release versions are NOT SUPPORTED).
The latest released version of ESS is always available on the web at: ESS web page or StatLib
The latest development version of ESS is available via https://svn.R-project.org/ESS/, the ESS Subversion repository. If you have a Subversion client (see http://subversion.tigris.org/), you can download the sources using:
% svn checkout https://svn.r-project.org/ESS/trunk path
which will put the ESS files into directory path. Later, within that directory, `svn update' will bring that directory up to date. Windows-based tools such as TortoiseSVN are also available for downloading the files. Alternatively, you can browse the sources with a web browser at: ESS SVN site. However, please use a subversion client instead to minimize the load when retrieving.
If you remove other versions of ESS from your emacs load-path, you can then use the development version by adding the following to .emacs:
(load "/path/to/ess-svn/lisp/ess-site.el")
Note that https is required, and that the SSL certificate for the Subversion server of the R project is
Certificate information:
- Hostname: svn.r-project.org
- Valid: from Jul 16 08:10:01 2004 GMT until Jul 14 08:10:01 2014 GMT
- Issuer: Department of Mathematics, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, CH
- Fingerprint: c9:5d:eb:f9:f2:56:d1:04:ba:44:61:f8:64:6b:d9:33:3f:93:6e:ad
(currently, there is no “trusted certificate”). You can accept this certificate permanently and will not be asked about it anymore.
For a Unix or Unix-like installation, please follow the next steps. Retrieve the latest tgz file (ess-VERSION.tgz) from ESS downloads area.
GNU Emacs Simple Instructions: for recent versions of Emacs (22.x or higher) and ESS, the installation process is simple.
%prompt gtar zxf ess-VERSION.tgz # for GNU tar
%prompt gunzip < ess-VERSION.tgz | tar xf - # for Unix tar
(require 'ess-site)
to ~/.emacs and restart Emacs.
(load "~/ess/ess-VERSION/lisp/ess-site")
in ~/.emacs and restart Emacs.
XEmacs Simple Instructions: for recent versions of XEmacs (21.x or higher) and ESS, the installation process is simple.
%prompt gtar zxf ess-VERSION.tgz # for GNU tar
%prompt gunzip < ess-VERSION.tgz | tar xf - # for Unix tar
(require 'ess-site)
to ~/.xemacs/init.el and restart XEmacs.
(load "~/ess/ess-VERSION/lisp/ess-site")
in ~/.xemacs/init.el and restart XEmacs.
Edit the default locations of LISPDIR, INFODIR and
ETCDIR in Section 1 of Makeconf (if you are
using XEmacs, then edit the XEmacs subsection in Section 1).
You can compile those files by:
make all
When that completes successfully, install the compiled files:
make install
For Microsoft Windows installation, please follow the next steps. Retrieve the latest zip file (ess-VERSION.zip) from ESS downloads area.
GNU Emacs Simple Instructions: for recent versions of Emacs (22.x or higher) and ESS, the installation process is simple.
(require 'ess-site)
to ~/.emacs and restart Emacs.
(load "C:/ess/ess-VERSION/lisp/ess-site")
in ~/.emacs and restart Emacs.
XEmacs Simple Instructions: for recent versions of XEmacs (21.x or higher), the installation process is much simpler. Hopefully, these simple instructions will work for you. If not, then more detailed, manual instructions follow.
HOME environment variable to be defined. You can
create it by visiting the following dialog:
My Computer->Control Panel->System->Advanced->Environment Variables
In the User variables window, press New. And create a variable
named HOME with a value something like (you must
use forward slashes / rather than backslashes \)
c:/Documents and Settings/%USERNAME%/Application Data. Then press OK for that
window and press OK for the main window. If you also have GNU Emacs
installed, GNU Emacs will recognize HOME and expand ~ accordingly.
C-x C-f followed by a ~.
From the Subdir menu, select Create Directory, and enter .xemacs
(require 'ess-site)
to ~/.xemacs/init.el and restart XEmacs.
(load "C:/ess/ess-VERSION/lisp/ess-site")
in ~/.xemacs/init.el and restart XEmacs.
Now, you should be ready to use ESS. For example, to edit statistical programs, load the files with the requisite extensions (".sas" for SAS, ".S" or "s" or "q" or "Q" for S-PLUS, ".r" or ".R" for R, and ".lsp" for XLispStat). One further step is needed if you wish to run statistical processes, see below.
To run statistical processes under ESS, Windows users will need to make sure that the directories for the software they will be using is in the PATH environment variable.
On Windows NT/2000/XP, add the directories to the PATH using the
My Computer->Control Panel->System->Advanced->Environment Variables menu.
Note that the directory containing the program is
added to the PATH, not the program itself. One such line is needed
for each software program. Be sure to use the abbreviation
progra~1 and not the long version with embedded blanks as
this may cause problems. Also, make sure to use backslashes \
since Windows requires them.
An alternative, for R users, is that rather than adjusting the PATH variable, you can add the following to your emacs initialization file (and restart emacs):
(setq inferior-R-program-name "c:/progra~1/R/R-2.2.1/bin/Rterm.exe")
This assumes that you have installed R-2.2.1 in the default location. Change the path otherwise to point to other locations.
Windows users who place S-PLUS anywhere other than the default location will also need to add the following three lines (properly adjusted for their location):
(setq-default inferior-S+6-program-name
"c:/progra~1/Insightful/SPLUS70/cmd/Splus")
(setq-default inferior-Sqpe+6-SHOME-name
"c:/progra~1/Insightful/SPLUS70")
(setq-default inferior-Sqpe+6-program-name
"c:/progra~1/Insightful/SPLUS70/cmd/Sqpe.exe")
The above example uses the default location of S-PLUS in
c:\progra~1\Insightful. Please note that ESS
considers S-PLUS 6, 7, and 8 to be variants of S+6.
These users may also need to modify the emacs variable ess-SHOME-versions
to match their installation in order to get the full set of S-PLUS versions
on their machine into the ESS menu.
To start the S-PLUS [678].x GUI from ESS under emacs:
M-x S
(or M-x S+6).
M-x S+6-msdos
C-c C-n or C-c C-r keys.
(If you are still using S-PLUS 4.x or 2000,\
then use M-x S+4 or M-x S+4-msdos.)
To start an S-PLUS [678].x session inside an emacs buffer—and without the S-PLUS GUI:
M-x Sqpe
(or M-x Sqpe+6).
This works with both the bash and msdos shells.
You will then be asked for a pathname ("S starting data
directory?"), from which to start the process. The prompt will
propose your current directory as the default.
You get Unix-like behavior, in particular the entire
transcript is available for emacs-style search commands.
Send lines or regions from the emacs buffer containing your S
program (for example, myfile.s) to the *S+6* buffer with the
C-c C-n or C-c C-r keys.
Interactive graphics are available with Sqpe by using the java
library supplied with S-PLUS 6.1 and newer releases.
Enter the commands:
library(winjava)
java.graph()
Graphs can be saved from the java.graph device
in several formats, but not PostScript. If you
need a PostScript file you will need to open a separate
postscript device.
(If you are still using S-PLUS 4.x or 2000, then use M-x Sqpe+4.)
To connect to an already running S-PLUS GUI (started, for example, from the S-PLUS icon):
M-x S+6-existing
or
M-x S+6-msdos-existing
You will then be
asked for a pathname ("S starting data directory?"), from which to
start the process. The prompt will propose your current directory
as the default. ESS will arrange for
communication with the already running S-PLUS GUI using the DDE protocol.
Send lines or regions
from the emacs buffer containing your S program (for example,
myfile.s) to the S-PLUS Commands Window with the
C-c C-n or C-c C-r keys.
(If you are still using S-PLUS 4.x or 2000,
then use M-x S+4-existing or M-x S+4-msdos-existing.)
If you wish to run R, you can start it with:
M-x R
XLispStat can not currently be run with
M-x XLS
Hopefully, this will change. However, you can still edit with emacs, and cut and paste the results into the XLispStat *Listener* Window under Microsoft Windows.
To start an S session on Unix or on Windows when you use the Cygwin bash shell, simply type M-x S RET.
To start an S session on Windows when you use the MSDOS prompt shell, simply type M-x S+6-msdos RET.
make-regexp to regexp-opt for font-locking is
complete. The new regexp-opt is now the default since
it is better than the old code in many ways (and especially more
maintainable). However, there are certainly some special
cases missed (bug reports and patches welcome!).
Setting ess-sas-run-regexp-opt to nil will result
in the old code being used.
= now results in
<-.
(ess-r-args-show) now
uses the new (tooltip-show-at-point) contributed by Erik Iverson.
ess-change-directory for setting both
emacs' current directory and the directory of an *R* or *S* buffer.
Changes/New Features in 5.3.11:
Changes/New Features in 5.3.10:
Changes/New Features in 5.3.9:
*R*) and transcript modes no longer
fontify language keywords (such as for, in, etc).
ess-sta-delimiter-friendly setting
to t to convert embedded semi-colons to newlines for Stata processing.
ess-mode
and noweb-mode.
M-x comment-region now available!
ess-swv-* commands (and keybindings) are now in
a submenu of the “Noweb” menu, when editing Sweave files.
Changes/New Features in 5.3.8:
ess-sas-submit-command and
ess-sas-submit-command-options now recognized by ess-sas-submit-region
ess-r-args-auto-show).
ess-eval-function-or-paragraph-and-step).
system command in version 1.0.3; specify whether
this command is available via ess-jags-system; if not
present, then no links are created so that the *shell*
buffer does not become unresponsive during the batch run
Changes/New Features in 5.3.7:
ess-default-style now *is* customizable, i.e.,
changing its value in ~/.emacs now does have the desired effect.
ess-font-lock-mode is a new variable (default: t)
which controls whether font-locking is enabled in ESS buffers.
ess-sas-submit-command-options which is buffer-local; portable
snooze for MS Windows via customize-able ess-sleep-for (floats welcome);
Xpdf now supported as a PDF viewer
ess-continued-statement-p for R and S.
Rgui
on MS Windows to send lines directly from emacs
to Rgui is available in file lisp/essd-rgui.el.
Preliminary documentation is in file doc/rgui-doc.txt.
Changes/New Features in 5.3.6:
Changes/New Features in 5.3.5:
R-mode
which is active by default and can be customized via
ess-r-args-electric-paren; i.e., use (setq
ess-r-args-electric-paren nil) to turn it off. Further,
ess-r-args-show-as allows to switch to the “tooltip” mode.
ess-get-pdf-viewer and *-ps-viewer; built on new
customizable variables ess-pdf-viewer-pref and
ess-ps-viewer-pref; currently used in ess-swv-PDF and
*-PS.
ess-swv-PDF to run pdf viewer only if
pdflatex was ok
ess-swv-weave to start R automatically if
none is running.
Changes/New Features in 5.3.4:
Changes/New Features in 5.3.3:
ess-display-buffer-reuse-frames
set to true (which changes default behavior) such that execution or
help *frames* are reused.
Changes/New Features in 5.3.2:
(require 'essd-bugs) with ESS[BUGS]
and JAGS by (require 'essd-jags) with ESS[JAGS]. But, only one
of them can be used at a time since they don't play nice together. Also,
C-c C-c is now bound to the function ess-bugs-next-action
(F12 has been retired). And finally, note that essl-bug.el
is deprecated and the replacement is essl-bugs.el.
Changes/New Features in 5.3.1:
make install
ess-assign-key is now C-x =.
RSiteSearch(..) but with the advantage of
using Emacs' preferred browser, see browse-url-browser-function
Changes/New Features in 5.3.0:
ess-use-inferior-program-name-in-buffer-name,
which enables using the executable name instead of the dialect name for
R. Feature request.
ess-eval-paragraph-and-step and
ess-eval-function-or-paragraph-and-step are bound to keys
C-c C-p and C-c C-c respectively and to the menu in
ESS-mode; also bound in the help mode (for evaluating examples).
ess-toggle-S-assign-key allows to
assign the “ <- ” insertion to an arbitrary key.
Please send bug reports, suggestions etc. to ESS-bugs@stat.math.ethz.ch
The easiest way to do this is within Emacs by typing
M-x ess-submit-bug-report
This also gives the maintainers valuable information about your installation which may help us to identify or even fix the bug.
If Emacs reports an error, backtraces can help us debug the problem. Type "M-x set-variable RET debug-on-error RET t RET". Then run the command that causes the error and you should see a *Backtrace* buffer containing debug information; send us that buffer.
Note that comments, suggestions, words of praise and large cash donations are also more than welcome.
There is a mailing list for discussions and announcements relating to ESS. Join the list by sending an e-mail with "subscribe ess-help" (or "help") in the body to ess-help-request@stat.math.ethz.ch; contributions to the list may be mailed to ess-help@stat.math.ethz.ch. Rest assured, this is a fairly low-volume mailing list.
The purposes of the mailing list include