| rcompgen {utils} | R Documentation |
This package provides a mechanism to generate relevant completions from a partially completed command line. It is not intended to be useful by itself, but rather in conjunction with other mechanisms that use it as a backend. The functions listed in the usage section provide a simple control and query mechanism. The actual interface consists of a few unexported functions described further down.
rc.settings(ops, ns, args, func, ipck, S3, data, help,
argdb, files)
rc.status()
rc.getOption(name)
rc.options(...)
ops, ns, args, func, ipck, S3, data, help, argdb, files |
logical, turning some optional completion features on and off.
All settings are turned on by default except |
name, ... |
user-settable options. Currently valid names are
See |
There are several types of completion, some of which can be disabled
using rc.settings. The most basic level, which can not be
turned off once the package is loaded, provides completion on names
visible on the search path, along with a few special keywords
(e.g. TRUE). This type of completion is not attempted if the
partial ‘word’ (a.k.a. token) being completed is empty (since
there would be too many completions). The more advanced types of
completion are described below.
$ and @:When the ops setting is turned on, completion after
$ and @ is attempted. This requires the prefix to
be evaluated, which is attempted unless it involves an explicit
function call (implicit function calls involving the use of
[, $, etc do not inhibit evaluation).
When the ns setting is turned on, completion inside
name spaces is attempted when a token is preceded by the ::
or ::: operators. Additionally, the basic completion
mechanism is extended to include attached name spaces, or more
precisely, foopkg:: becomes a valid completion of
foo if the return value of search() includes
the string "package:foopkg".
The completion of package name spaces applies only to attached
packages, i.e. if MASS is not attached (whether or not it
is loaded), MAS will not complete to MASS::.
However, attempted completion inside an apparent name space
will attempt to load the name space if it is not already loaded,
e.g. trying to complete on MASS::fr will load MASS
(but not necessarily attach it) even if it is not already loaded.
When the args setting is turned on, completion on function
arguments is attempted whenever deemed appropriate. The mechanism
used will currently fail if the relevant function (at the point
where completion is requested) was entered on a previous prompt
(which implies in particular that the current line is being typed
in response to a continuation prompt, usually +). Note
that separation by newlines is fine.
The list of possible argument completions that is generated can be
misleading. There is no problem for non-generic functions (except
that ... is listed as a completion; this is intentional
as it signals the fact that the function can accept further
arguments). However, for generic functions, it is practically
impossible to give a reliable argument list without evaluating
arguments (and not even then, in some cases), which is risky (in
addition to being difficult to code, which is the real reason it
hasn't even been tried), especially when that argument is itself
an inline function call. Our compromise is to consider arguments
of all currently available methods of that generic. This
has two drawbacks. First, not all listed completions may be
appropriate in the call currently being constructed. Second, for
generics with many methods (like print and plot),
many matches will need to be considered, which may take a
noticeable amount of time. Despite these drawbacks, we believe
this behaviour to be more useful than the only other practical
alternative, which is to list arguments of the generic only.
Only S3 methods are currently supported in this fashion, and that
can be turned off using the S3 setting.
Since arguments can be unnamed in R function calls, other types
of completion are also appropriate whenever argument completion
is. Since there are usually many many more visible objects than
formal arguments of any particular function, possible argument
completions are often buried in a bunch of other possibilities.
However, recall that basic completion is suppressed for blank
tokens. This can be useful to list possible arguments of a
function. For example, trying to complete seq([TAB] and
seq(from = 1, [TAB]) will both list only the arguments of
seq (or any of its methods), whereas trying to complete
seq(length[TAB] will list both the length.out
argument and the length( function as possible completions.
Note that no attempt is made to remove arguments already supplied,
as that would incur a further speed penalty.
For a few special functions (library,
data, etc), the first argument is treated specially,
in the sense that normal completion is suppressed, and some
function specific completions are enabled if so requested by the
settings. The ipck setting, which controls whether
library and require will complete on
installed packages, is disabled by default because the
first call to installed.packages is potentially time
consuming (e.g. when packages are installed on a remote network
file server). Note, however, that the results of a call to
installed.packages is cached, so subsequent calls
are usually fast, so turning this option on is not particularly
onerous even in such situations.
rc.status returns, as a list, the contents of an internal
(unexported) environment that is used to record the results of the
last completion attempt. This can be useful for debugging. For such
use, one must resist the temptation to use completion when typing the
call to rc.status itself, as that then becomes the last attempt
by the time the call is executed.
The items of primary interest in the returned list are:
comps |
the possible completions generated by the last
call to |
token |
the token that was (or, is to be) completed, as
set by the last call to |
linebuffer |
the full line, as set by the last call to
|
start |
the start position of the token in the line
buffer, as set by the last call to |
end |
the end position of the token in the line
buffer, as set by the last call to |
fileName |
logical, indicating whether the cursor is currently inside quotes. If so, no completion is attempted. A reasonable default behaviour for the backend in that case is to fall back to filename completion. |
fguess |
the name of the function |
isFirstArg |
logical. If cursor is inside a function, is it the first argument? |
In addition, the components settings and options give
the current values of settings and options respectively.
rc.getOption and rc.options behave much like
getOption and options respectively.
There are several unexported functions in the package. Of these, a few are special because they provide the API through which other mechanisms can make use of the facilities provided by this package (they are unexported because they are not meant to be called directly by users). The usage of these functions are:
.assignToken(text)
.assignLinebuffer(line)
.assignStart(start)
.assignEnd(end)
.completeToken()
.retrieveCompletions()
.getFileComp()
.guessTokenFromLine()
.win32consoleCompletion(linebuffer, cursorPosition,
check.repeat = TRUE,
minlength = -1)
.addFunctionInfo(...)
The first four functions set up a completion attempt by specifying the
token to be completed (text), and indicating where
(start and end, which should be integers) the token is
placed within the complete line typed so far (line).
Potenial completions of the token are generated by
.completeToken, and the completions can be retrieved as an R
character vector using .retrieveCompletions.
If the cursor is inside quotes, no completion is attempted. The
function .getFileComp can be used after a call to
.completeToken to determine if this is the case (returns
TRUE), and alternative completions generated as deemed useful.
In most cases, filename completion is a reasonable fallback.
The .guessTokenFromLine function is provided for use with
backends that do not already break a line into tokens. It requires
the linebuffer and endpoint (cursor position) to be already set, and
itself sets the token and the start position. It returns the token as
a character string. (This is used by the ESS completion hook example
given in the examples/altesscomp.el file.)
The .win32consoleCompletion is similar in spirit, but is more
geared towards the Windows GUI (or rather, any front-end that has no
completion facilities of its own). It requires the linebuffer
and cursor position as arguments, and returns a list with three
components, addition, possible and comps. If
there is an unambiguous extension at the current position,
addition contains the additional text that should be inserted
at the cursor. If there is more than one possibility, these are
available either as a character vector of preformatted strings in
possible, or as a single string in comps.
possible consists of lines formatted using the current
width option, so that printing them on the console one line at
a time will be a reasonable way to list them. comps is a space
separated (collapsed) list of the same completions, in case the
front-end wishes to display it in some other fashion.
The minlength argument can be used to suppress completion when
the token is too short (which can be useful if the front-end is set up
to try completion on every keypress). If check.repeat is
TRUE, it is detected if the same completion is being requested
more than once in a row, and ambiguous completions are returned only
in that case. This is an attempt to emulate GNU Readline behaviour,
where a single TAB completes upto any unambiguous part, and multiple
possibilities are reported only on two consecutive TABs.
As the various front-end interfaces evolve, the details of these functions are likely to change as well.
The function .addFunctionInfo can be used to add information
about the permitted argument names for specific functions. Multiple
named arguments are allowed in calls to it, where the tags are names
of functions and values are character vectors representing valid
arguments. When the argdb setting is TRUE, these are
used as a source of valid argument names for the relevant functions.
If you are uncomfortable with unsolicited evaluation of pieces of
code, you should set ops = FALSE. Otherwise, trying to
complete foo@ba will evaluate foo, trying to complete
foo[i,1:10]$ba will evaluate foo[i,1:10], etc. This
should not be too bad, as explicit function calls (involving
parentheses) are not evaluated in this manner. However, this
will affect lazy loaded symbols (and presumably other promise
type thingies).
Deepayan Sarkar, deepayan.sarkar@r-project.org