Structuring a Statistical Analysis with R Using Emacs/ESS

Question

I am looking for a way to structure my statistical analysis. I currently use Emacs/ESS and the analysis file turned out quite long. I have started to put parts of the code into sourceable functions in a separate file, but still...

I would like to introduce some kind of subheadings/ section titles in the file (Aggregation, Cluster-analysis, Simulations, ...) and write the code beneath it, so I could quickly jump to the sections that I want to work on.

I guess I could just use comments and search for them, but I couldn't get an overview or an index that way. I also thought about using Org-Mode for the Headlines, but that wouldn't be very convenient for collaborators, who work with another Editor.

I know R-Studio implements this with sections, so there will be a solution for emacs, right?

Thank you very much!

PS: something like imenu would work, but that's just for functions, not for sections

Answer 1

In general I use org-mode and org-babel, but when I've got to share scripts with others, I've got the following in my .emacs :

(defgroup ess-jb-faces nil
  "Faces used by cutomized ess-mode"
  :group 'faces)

(defface ess-jb-comment-face
  '((t (:background "cornsilk" 
    :foreground "DimGrey"
    :inherit font-lock-comment-face)))
  "Face used to highlight comments."
  :group 'ess-jb-faces)

(defface ess-jb-comment-bold-face
  '((t (:weight bold
    :inherit ess-jb-comment-face)))
  "Face used to highlight bold in comments."
  :group 'ess-jb-faces)

(defface ess-jb-h1-face
  '((t (:height 1.6 
    :weight bold 
    :foreground "MediumBlue"
    :inherit ess-jb-comment-face)))
  "Face used to highlight h1 headers."
  :group 'ess-jb-faces)

(defface ess-jb-h2-face
  '((t (:height 1.2 
    :weight bold 
    :foreground "DarkViolet"
    :inherit ess-jb-comment-face)))
  "Face used to highlight h2 headers."
  :group 'ess-jb-faces)

(defface ess-jb-h3-face
  '((t (:height 1.0 
    :weight bold 
    :foreground "DarkViolet"
    :inherit ess-jb-comment-face)))
  "Face used to highlight h3 headers."
  :group 'ess-jb-faces)

(defface ess-jb-hide-face
  '((t (:foreground "white"
    :background "white"
    :inherit ess-jb-comment-face)))
  "Face used to hide characters."
  :group 'ess-jb-faces)

(font-lock-add-keywords 'ess-mode
   '(("^###\\(#\\)\\([^#].*\\)$" (1 'ess-jb-hide-face t)(2 'ess-jb-h1-face t))
     ("^###\\(##\\)\\([^#].*\\)$" (1 'ess-jb-hide-face t)(2 'ess-jb-h2-face t))
     ("^###\\(###\\)\\([^#].*\\)$" (1 'ess-jb-hide-face t)(2 'ess-jb-h3-face t))
     ("^###\\( .*\\|$\\)" 1 'ess-jb-comment-face t)
     ("^###" "\\*.*?\\*" nil nil (0 'ess-jb-comment-bold-face append))
     ))

With this, any comment with #### at the beginning of the line is formatted as an "header 1". Any comment with ##### is formatted as an "header 2", etc. And lines which begin with ### is seen as a comment with a special font-lock (used for long comments).

This can give something like this :

This is quite hacky, but the advantage is that it only uses standard R comments and as such can be shared without problem with others. In general I use the following for "header 1" : others see it as below, while I enjoy my defined font-lock :

############################################
#### HEADER 1
############################################

With this syntax, you can also use the following to activate outline-minor-mode on the sections defined previously and be able to fold/unfold them :

(add-hook 'ess-mode-hook
      '(lambda ()
         (auto-complete-mode nil)
         (outline-minor-mode 1)
         (setq outline-regexp "\\(^#\\{4,6\\}\\)\\|\\(^[a-zA-Z0-9_\.]+ ?<- ?function(.*{\\)")
         (setq outline-heading-alist
           '(("####" . 1) ("#####" . 2) ("######" . 3)
             ("^[a-zA-Z0-9_\.]+ ?<- ?function(.*{" .4)))))

All this code has not been very well tested, and I'm far from an expert in emacs lisp, so there should be better ways to do it, and don't be surprised in case of bugs !

Answer 2

Recent (Feb 2013) additions to Orgmode mean that you should now be able to embed org headings in your source code, and then navigate through them using orgstruct-mode. So, upgrade your org mode via git, and then try opening the following example R file. When you are on a comment line that has an org heading embedded, just hit TAB, or shift-TAB, and you should get org-mode headings.

### * Create data
data = list( s1=list(x=1:3, y=3:1), 
     s2=list(x=1:5, y=1:5), s3=list(x=1:4, y=rep(3,4)))

### * Base graphics version


par(mfrow=c(2,2))
lapply(data, plot)

### * Lattice version

nplots <- length(data)
pts.per.plot <- sapply(data, function(l) length(l$x))
df <- data.frame(which=rep(1:nplots, times=pts.per.plot),
                 x=unlist(sapply(data, function(l) l$x)),
                 y=unlist(sapply(data, function(l) l$y)))

xyplot(y~x|which, data=df, layout=c(2,2))

### ** Make the pdf
pdf(file='o.pdf')
xyplot(y~x|which, data=df, layout=c(2,1))                 
dev.off()

### * End of file

### Local Variables:
### eval: (orgstruct-mode 1)
### orgstruct-heading-prefix-regexp: "### "
### End: