User manual

Chapter 8: Reading help files 44
8 Reading help files
ESS provides an easy-to-use facility for reading S help files from within Emacs. From within
the ESS process buffer or any ESS edit buffer, typing C-c C-v (ess-display-help-on-
object) will prompt you for the name of an object for which you would like documentation.
Completion is provided over all objects which have help files.
If the requested object has documentation, you will be popped into a buffer (named
*help(obj-name )*) containing the help file. This buffer is placed in a special ‘S Help’
mode which disables the usual editing commands but which provides a number of keys for
paging through the help file.
Help commands:
? ess-describe-help-mode Pops up a help buffer with a list of the commands
available in S help mode.
h ess-display-help-on-object Pop up a help buffer for a different object.
Paging commands:
b
DEL scroll-down Move one page backwards through the help file.
SPC scroll-up Move one page forwards through the help file.
>
< end-of-buffer Move to the beginning and end of the help file, respectively.
Section-based motion commands:
n
p ess-skip-to-previous-section and ess-skip-to-next-section Move to
the next and previous section header in the help file, respectively. A section
header consists of a number of capitalized words, followed by a colon.
In addition, the s key followed by one of the following letters will jump to a particular
section in the help file. Note that R uses capitalized instead of all-capital section headers,
e.g., ‘Description:’ instead of ‘DESCRIPTION:’ and also only some versions of S(-plus) have
sections ‘BACKGROUND’, ‘BUGS’, ‘OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS’, ‘REQUIRED ARGUMENTS’, and ‘SIDE
EFFECTS’.
Do use s ? to get the current list of active key bindings.
‘a’ ARGUMENTS:
‘b’ BACKGROUND:
‘B’ BUGS:
‘d’ DESCRIPTION:
‘D’ DETAILS:
‘e’ EXAMPLES:
‘n’ NOTE:
‘O’ OPTIONAL ARGUMENTS: