General Information: README
***************************
($Revision: 5.8 $, for ESS 5.1.x)
This is the README file for the distribution of ESS version 5.1.3,
the alpha/beta series we are using on the way to producing 5.2 (the next
stable distribution). 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, PSPP) 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@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 (under MS
Windows and remote access) 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.
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.
New Features
============
Beginning with ESS 5.1.2 we are able to use inferior iESS mode to
communicate directly with a running S-Plus 4.x process using the
Microsoft DDE protocol. We use the familiar (from Unix ESS) C-c C-n
and related key sequences to send lines from the S-mode file to the
inferior S process. We continue to edit S input files in ESS[S] mode
and transcripts of previous S sessions in ESS Transcript mode. All
three modes know the S language, syntax, and indentation patterns and
provide the syntactic highlighting that eases the programming tasks.
For Microsoft platforms, the version of Emacs that this has been
tested with is NTEmacs 20.2 and 20.3. More information about NTEmacs
can be retrieved from:
* `http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/voelker/ntemacs.html'
including information on retrieval and installation. This has not
yet been tested with XEmacs for Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT.
Current Features
================
* Languages Supported:
* S dialects (S 3/4, S-PLUS 3.x/4.x/5.x, and R)
* LispStat dialects (XLispStat, ViSta under development)
* SAS
* Stata
* SPSS dialects (SPSS, Fiasco (GNU project)) (under development)
* SCA (under development)
* 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
Stability
=========
Versions 5.1.x are meant as a beta-level releases. While some bugs
are fixed from 5.0, others have been introduced, especially with
regards to new features. 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!
Requirements
============
ESS version 5.1.3 requires Emacs version 19.29 or later, or version
XEmacs 19.14 or later. It has been most thoroughly tested with:
* S-PLUS versions 3.3, 3.4, 4.5, 5.0
* R versions >=0.49
* XLispStat versions >=3.50
* S4
* SAS
* Stata >=6.0
on the following platforms
* SunOS (all)
* Solaris (all)
* SGI (all)
* Linux (S-PLUS 5.0, R, XLispStat, S4, Stata 6.0)
* Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT (SPLUS 4.5)
with the following Emacsen:
* Emacs 19.29, 19.34, XEmacs 19.16, XEmacs 20.4, XEmacs 21.0
* Emacs 19.28 with SAS (with additional modifications)
* NTEmacs 20.3.1 with S-PLUS 4.5.
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.
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://stat.ethz.ch/ESS/'
The latest (no more than 24 hours behind the developers) version of
ESS can also be retrieved using anonymous CVS. Details on this are
forthcoming.
Installation (from tar file)
============================
* 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 distribution directory". It will
contain, at the end, the tar file ESS-5.1.3.tar.gz, and a
directory for the ESS source, which will be termed "the
ESS-5.1.3 source 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-5.1.3.tar.gz to the location where you want the
ESS-5.1.3 directory, and cd there. Extract the files from the
distribution, which will unpack into a subdirectory, ESS-5.1.3.
gunzip ESS-5.1.3.tar.gz tar vxf ESS-5.1.3.tar
(or: gunzip < ESS-5.1.3.tar.gz | tar vxf - ). (or using GNU tar:
tar zvxf ESS-5.1.3.tar.gz).
The tar command will extract files into the current directory.
Do not create ESS-5.1.3 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-5.1.3 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!
Installation (from anonymous CVS)
=================================
To be added.
Reporting 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.
Note that comments, suggestions, words of praise and large cash
donations are also more than welcome.
Mailing Lists
=============
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.
Authors
=======
* A.J. Rossini (http://www.biostat.washington.edu/~rossini/)
<rossini@stat.sc.edu>
* Richard M. Heiberger (http://www.sbm.temple.edu/departments/statistics/) <rmh@fisher.stat.temple.edu>
* Kurt Hornik (http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik)
<hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at>
* Martin Maechler (http://stat.ethz.ch/~maechler/)
<maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch>