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($Revision: 5.1 $)
Emacs Speaks Statistics (ESS), version 5.0
------------------------------------------
This is the README file for the distribution of ESS version 5.0, which
used to be S-mode. ESS is an Emacs-Lisp interface for interactive
statistical programming and data analysis. Languages supported
include: S dialects (S 3/4, S-PLUS 3.x, and R), LispStat dialects
(XLispStat, ViSta), and SAS. Stata and SPSS dialect (SPSS, Fiasco)
support is being examined for possible future implementation (a
preliminary Stata mode is distributed).
ESS grew out of the desire for bug fixes and extensions to S-mode-4.8.
In particular, XEmacs support as well as extensions to incorporate R
were desired. In addition, with new modes being developed for R,
Stata, and SAS, it was felt that providing for a unifying framework
would eliminate differences in the user interface, as well as to
provide for faster development of production tools and statistical
analysis. 5.0 has, for its guts, the basic framework from S-mode.
However, it has been cleaned, streamlined, brought closer to
conformance as a standard GNU Emacs package, and redesigned for
modularity and reuse.
The current development team is led by A.J. (Tony) Rossini
(rossini@stat.sc.edu and arossini@biostat.washington.edu), who did the
initial port to XEmacs and has been the primary coder. Martin
Maechler (maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch) and Kurt Hornik
(hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at) have assisted with S-PLUS, S4, R, and
XLispStat sub-modes, and Richard M. Heiberger
(rmh@fisher.stat.temple.edu) has done much of the work for
implementing the SAS sub-mode, as well as assisted with S-PLUS and S4
development. Douglas Bates (bates@stat.wisc.edu) contributed the
initial S4 mode, as well as provided disk space, ftp and http access
to the source for development purposes.
We are grateful to David M. Smith , the previous developer (for S-mode
3.x and 4.x), as well as to the initial developers of S-mode, Doug
Bates, Ed Kademan and Frank Ritter.
In addition, some of the code has been and will be borrowed from Tom
Cook (from his excellent SAS mode) and Thomas Lumley (preliminary
Stata mode), gratefully (from us) and with permission (from them).
The name is ESS. Not ESS-mode.
0. LICENSE
----------
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.
1. FEATURES
-----------
Languages Supported (or planned to be supported)
S dialects (S 3/4, S-PLUS 3.x/4.x/5.x, and R)
LispStat dialects (XLispStat, ViSta)
SAS
Stata
SPSS dialects (SPSS, Fiasco (GNU project))
Editing source code (S, LispStat, SAS)
Syntactic indentation and highlighting of source code
Partial evaluations of code
Loading and error-checking of code
Source code revision maintenance
Interacting with the process (S, LispStat, SAS)
Command-line editing
Searchable Command history
Command-line completion of S object names and file names
Quick access to object lists and search lists
Transcript recording
Interface to the help system
Transcript manipulation (S3, S+3, S4, R, XLispStat)
Recording and saving transcript files
Manipulating and editing saved transcripts
Re-evaluating commands from transcript files
Help File Editing (R)
Syntactic indentation and highlighting of source code.
Sending Examples to running ESS process.
Previewing
See the accompanying manual ess.texi for details of features of ESS.
See the file Doc/NEWS for changes in recent versions.
2. STABILITY
------------
Version 5.0 is meant as a functional release. However, there are a
few known bugs (and countless other undiscovered ones); see the file
Doc/TODO for details. Bug reports are solicited; see the BUGS section
below. Patches or suggested coding fixes with bug reports are much
appreciated!
3. REQUIREMENTS
---------------
ESS version 5.0 requires Emacs version 19.29 or later, or version
XEmacs 19.14 or later. ESS is supposed to work with any version of S,
S-PLUS, R, SAS, or XLispStat.
It has been most thoroughly tested with:
S-PLUS 3.3 and 3.4, R 0.49 and 0.50, XLispStat 3.50, S4, and
SAS on (when available) SunOS, Solaris, SGI, and Linux (Unix)
systems;
Emacs 19.29, 19.34, XEmacs 19.16, XEmacs 20.4.
It may need some work with other configurations. We include
configuration suggestions for emacs 19.28 in Doc/README-19.28.
These are the changes we made in order to use ESS with SAS on a Digital
Alpha running Emacs 19.28.
Suggestions and information about attempts to port to
Microsoft-developed operating systems are encouraged. In particular,
it is an open question whether or not it can be implemented for
XLispStat, ViSta, R, S-PLUS 4.0, Stata, and SAS under a Microsoft
environment using NTEmacs (or the version of XEmacs currently under
development).
4. GETTING THE LATEST VERSION
-----------------------------
The latest versions of ESS are always available by WWW from:
http://franz.stat.wisc.edu/pub/ESS/
ftp://franz.stat.wisc.edu/pub/ESS/
The HTML version of the documentation can be found at:
http://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/ESS/
5. INSTALLATION
---------------
* cd to a directory where you keep emacs lisp files, or create a new
directory to hold the distribution. This directory will be referred
to below as "the ESS-5.0 distribution directory". It will contain,
at the end, the tar file ESS-5.0.tar.gz, and a directory for
the ESS source, which will be termed "the ESS-5.0 directory". Note
that the .elc files may be installed elsewhere (as specified in the
Makefile) if desired.
* Retrieve the compressed tar file from one of the FTP or WWW archive
sites via FTP (or HTTP).
* Copy ESS-5.0.tar.gz to the location where you want the ESS-5.0
directory, and cd there. Extract the files from the distribution,
which will unpack into a subdirectory, ESS-5.0.
gunzip ESS-5.0.tar.gz
tar vxf ESS-5.0.tar
(or: gunzip < ESS-5.0.tar.gz | tar vxf - ).
(or using GNU tar: tar zvxf ESS-5.0.tar.gz).
The tar command will extract files into the current directory.
Do not create ESS-5.0 yourself, or you will get an extra level of
depth to your directory structure.
* Edit the file ess-site.el as explained in the comments section of
that file. Installations that are using ESS only for S-plus 3.x
will probably not need to make any changes. Installations that also
have one or more of (S4 R SAS XLispStat Stata) will need to uncomment
corresponding lines in ess-site.el.
* READ THIS ITEM THOROUGHLY BEFORE STARTING:
In the ESS-5.0 directory, edit the file Makefile (only if you want
to place the executables in other locations; see LISPDIR and
INFODIR) and then type:
make
make install
This will install the info files (and the lisp files, if they
are to go in another directory). Don't forget to edit the file
`dir' in the info directory specified by INFODIR in the Makefile.
See the sample `dir' file for an example of the line to add.
If you are using XEmacs, you might do:
make EMACS=xemacs
make EMACS=xemacs install
instead of editing the Makefile.
An alternative, if you are running XEmacs and have access to the
XEmacs system directories, would be to place the directory in the
site-lisp directory, and simply type "make" (and copy the
documentation as appropriate).
For Emacs, you would still have to move the files into the top level
site-lisp directory.
* Add the line
(load "/PATH/ess-site")
to your .emacs file (or default.el or site-init.el, for a site-wide
installation). Replace `/PATH' above with the value of
ess-lisp-directory as defined in ess-site.el.
Alternatively, if ess-site.el is in your current Lisp path, you can
do:
(require 'ess-site)
to configure Emacs for ESS.
* (OPTIONAL) If you are running S-PLUS or R, you might consider
installing the database files. From within (X)Emacs, "C-x d" to the
directory containing ESS. Now:
M-x S+3
(get running. once you have reached the SPLUS 3.x prompt, do:)
M-x ess-create-object-name-db
(this will create the file: ess-s+3-namedb.el; if it isn't in the
ESS directory, move it there).
Then, completions will be autoloaded and will not be regenerated for
every session.
For R:
M-x R
(get running. once you have reached the R prompt, do:)
M-x ess-create-object-name-db
(this will create the file: ess-r-namedb.el; if it isn't in the
ESS directory, move it there).
* For more information on using ESS in your daily work, see the files
README.S, README.SAS, and README.XLispStat.
For the impatient, the quick version of usage follows:
* To edit statistical programs, load the files with the requiste
extensions (".sas" for SAS, ".S" for S-PLUS, ".R" for R, and ".lsp"
for XLispStat).
* To run statistical processes under (X)Emacs:
Run S-PLUS 3.x with:
M-x S+3
(or M-x S using backwards compatibility). You will then be asked
for a pathname ("S starting data directory?"), from which to start
the process.
If you wish to run R, you can start it with:
M-x R
XLispStat can be run with
M-x XLS
SAS can be run with:
M-x SAS
* That's it!
6. BUGS
-------
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.
7. THE ESS MAILING LIST
--------------------------
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
- helping users of ESS to get along with it.
- discussing aspects of using ESS for GNU Emacs and XEmacs.
- suggestions for improvements.
- announcements of new [beta] releases of ESS.
- posting small patches to ESS.
----
Richard M. Heiberger <rmh@fisher.stat.temple.edu>
Kurt Hornik <hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at>
Martin Maechler <maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch>
A.J. (Tony) Rossini <rossini@stat.sc.edu>