5. Manipulating saved transcript files

Inferior S mode records the transcript (the list of all commands executed, and their output) in the process buffer, which can be saved as a transcript file, which should normally have the suffix `.St'. The most obvious use for a transcript file is as a static record of the actions you have performed in a particular S session. Sometimes, however, you may wish to re-execute commands recorded in the transcript file by submitting them to a running ESS process. This is what Transcript Mode is for.

If you load file a with the suffix `.St' into Emacs, it is placed in S Transcript Mode. Transcript Mode is similar to Inferior S mode (see section 4. Interacting with the ESS process): paragraphs are defined as a command and its output, and you can move though commands either with the paragraph commands or with C-c C-p and C-c C-n.

5.1 Resubmitting commands from the transcript file

Three commands are provided to re-submit command lines from the transcript file to a running ESS process. They are:

• RET (ess-transcript-send-command)
  Send the current command line to the ESS process, and execute it.

• C-c RET (ess-transcript-copy-command)
  Copy the current command to the ESS process, and switch to the ESS process buffer (ready to edit the copied command).

• M-RET (ess-transcript-send-command-and-move)
  Send the current command to the ESS process, and move to the next command line. This command is useful for submitting a series of commands.

Note that these commands are similar to those on the same keys in Inferior S Mode. In all three cases, the commands should be executed when the cursor is on a command line in the transcript; the prompt is automatically removed before the command is submitted.

5.2 Cleaning transcript files

Yet another use for transcript files is to extract the command lines for inclusion in an S source file or function. Transcript mode provides one command which does just this:

• C-c C-w (ess-transcript-clean-region)
  Deletes all prompts and command output in the region, leaving only the commands themselves.

The remaining command lines may then be copied to a source file or edit buffer for inclusion in a function definition, or may be evaluated directly (see section 7.4 Sending code to the ESS process) using the code evaluation commands from S mode, also available in S Transcript Mode.