How can I get the up arrow key to bring up prior commands in my Unix installation of S+?

How can I get the up arrow key to bring up prior commands in my Unix installation of S+?

When using the command line in Spotfire S+ for Windows you can use the up and down arrow keys to scroll through previous calls, but extra configuration is needed when using Spotfire S+ in a UNIX/Linux environment. Two changes must be made to enable this functionality.

1.  You must set the Unix environment variable S_CLEDITOR to "emacs".  How to set this environment variable depends on the shell you are using:

With csh or tcsh, it would be:
setenv S_CLEDITOR emacs

With sh or bash, it would be:
set S_CLEDITOR=emacs

2.  You must start S+ with the '-e' flag.  For example:

Splus -e

You can confirm that these are set properly by checking the 'editor' option once you have started S+.  Run:

>options()$editor

If this returns "emacs" then you have set things correctly.  If it returns something else, such as "vi", then you will need to recheck the settings.

3.  If both of these are set properly but the up arrow still isn't working it's possible that your history file has gotten too big and may be slightly corrupted.  Close S+ and look for a file called ".Splus_history" in your home directory.  Delete this file and then restart S+ to recreate it.  Once the file has been recreated you should have more success with the up arrow key.