R devel - Mar 2006 - enhancement request for browser (PR#8706)

I would like a way to modify the behavior of browser(), so that
entering a blank line does nothing rather than being equivalent to
"c".

I'm running R using emacs ESS.
I often debug functions by inserting a browser, and stepping through
one line at a time, sending a line at a time from a buffer with
the function to the R buffer.
But every time I send a blank line, the browser interprets that as a c,
and continues on.

When I write functions, I make them more readable using blank lines
between sections.  The combination of this with the current behavior
of browser is maddening.

When the browser call is inside a loop and I happen to enter a
blank line, the loop continues without me realizing it.  All of a
sudden many variables have changed, for no apparent reason.

It also seems to happen "by itself", perhaps due to an interaction
of R and emacs ESS when I paste in a block of text.

Thank you,
Tim Hesterberg

P.S.  The use of a blank line as a synonym for "c" is not documented
in help(browser).


--please do not edit the information below--

Version:
 platform = i386-pc-mingw32
 arch = i386
 os = mingw32
 system = i386, mingw32
 status = 
 major = 2
 minor = 2.1
 year = 2005
 month = 12
 day = 20
 svn rev = 36812
 language = R

Windows XP Professional (build 2600) Service Pack 2.0

Locale:
LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United
States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United
States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252

Search Path:
 .GlobalEnv, package:glmpath, package:survival, package:splines, package:lars,
package:methods, package:stats, package:graphics, package:grDevices,
package:utils, package:datasets, Autoloads, package:base