R devel - May 2012 - unlist crashes 32-bit R on WinXP when use.names=TRUE

Hi all,

I experienced a crash in R-2.15.0 on 32-bit Windows XP (sessionInfo
below) when running the piece of code below.  I cannot replicate the
error on 64-bit Linux, 64-bit Windows, or 32-bit R running under
64-bit Windows.  I do not have, and could not find, a 32-bit version
of Linux to test this.
> NOW <- Sys.time()
> FUTURE <- NOW+1:1e7
> crash <- as.character(FUTURE)
Error in unlist(unclass(x)[1L:3L]) :
  promise already under evaluation: recursive default argument
reference or earlier problems?
> traceback()
Error: C stack usage is too close to the limit
> # evaluating an expression at this point would cause R to exit ungracefully
Here's an example that avoids a lot of unnecessary code:

L1 <- list(one=1:1e6, two=1:1e6, three=1:1e6)
# no issue with smaller list elements
U1 <- unlist(L1, recursive=TRUE, use.names=TRUE)
C1 <- c(L1, recursive=TRUE, use.names=TRUE)

L2 <- list(one=1:1e7, two=1:1e7, three=1:1e7)
# crashes after ~2min with error above
U2 <- unlist(L2, recursive=TRUE, use.names=TRUE)
C2 <- c(L2, recursive=TRUE, use.names=TRUE)
# no issue if use.names=FALSE
U3 <- unlist(L2, recursive=TRUE, use.names=FALSE)
C3 <- c(L2, recursive=TRUE, use.names=FALSE)

I took a look at do_unlist and do_c_dflt in bind.c, but I stopped at
NewExtractNames because it is a bit beyond my current understanding.
Any thoughts?
> sessionInfo()
R version 2.15.0 (2012-03-30)
Platform: i386-pc-mingw32/i386 (32-bit)

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252
[2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C
[5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

Please let me know if I forgot anything or if there's anything I can do to
help.

Best,
--
Joshua Ulrich  |  FOSS Trading: www.fosstrading.com

R/Finance 2012: Applied Finance with R
www.RinFinance.com

On 12-05-05 10:39 PM, Joshua Ulrich wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I experienced a crash in R-2.15.0 on 32-bit Windows XP (sessionInfo
> below) when running the piece of code below.  I cannot replicate the
> error on 64-bit Linux, 64-bit Windows, or 32-bit R running under
> 64-bit Windows.  I do not have, and could not find, a 32-bit version
> of Linux to test this.
>
>> NOW<- Sys.time()
>> FUTURE<- NOW+1:1e7
>> crash<- as.character(FUTURE)
> Error in unlist(unclass(x)[1L:3L]) :
>    promise already under evaluation: recursive default argument
> reference or earlier problems?
>> traceback()
> Error: C stack usage is too close to the limit
>> # evaluating an expression at this point would cause R to exit
ungracefully
>
> Here's an example that avoids a lot of unnecessary code:
>
> L1<- list(one=1:1e6, two=1:1e6, three=1:1e6)
> # no issue with smaller list elements
> U1<- unlist(L1, recursive=TRUE, use.names=TRUE)
> C1<- c(L1, recursive=TRUE, use.names=TRUE)
>
> L2<- list(one=1:1e7, two=1:1e7, three=1:1e7)
> # crashes after ~2min with error above
> U2<- unlist(L2, recursive=TRUE, use.names=TRUE)
> C2<- c(L2, recursive=TRUE, use.names=TRUE)
> # no issue if use.names=FALSE
> U3<- unlist(L2, recursive=TRUE, use.names=FALSE)
> C3<- c(L2, recursive=TRUE, use.names=FALSE)
>
> I took a look at do_unlist and do_c_dflt in bind.c, but I stopped at
> NewExtractNames because it is a bit beyond my current understanding.
> Any thoughts?
I would guess that some loop in the C code is using alloca to allocate 
temporary storage on the stack, and it's running out of stack space. 
I'll take a look...

Duncan Murdoch
>
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 2.15.0 (2012-03-30)
> Platform: i386-pc-mingw32/i386 (32-bit)
>
> locale:
> [1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252
> [2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252
> [3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
> [4] LC_NUMERIC=C
> [5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
>
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
>
> Please let me know if I forgot anything or if there's anything I can do
to help.
>
> Best,
> --
> Joshua Ulrich  |  FOSS Trading: www.fosstrading.com
>
> R/Finance 2012: Applied Finance with R
> www.RinFinance.com
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel

On 12-05-05 10:39 PM, Joshua Ulrich wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I experienced a crash in R-2.15.0 on 32-bit Windows XP (sessionInfo
> below) when running the piece of code below.  I cannot replicate the
> error on 64-bit Linux, 64-bit Windows, or 32-bit R running under
> 64-bit Windows.  I do not have, and could not find, a 32-bit version
> of Linux to test this.
>
>> NOW<- Sys.time()
>> FUTURE<- NOW+1:1e7
>> crash<- as.character(FUTURE)
> Error in unlist(unclass(x)[1L:3L]) :
>    promise already under evaluation: recursive default argument
> reference or earlier problems?
>> traceback()
> Error: C stack usage is too close to the limit
>> # evaluating an expression at this point would cause R to exit
ungracefully
I think what's happening is this:

R tries to allocate one of those names, and fails.

It tries to display an error message, but that fails too, because it 
needs memory for the message.

You get a strange error, and R is left unstable.

In R-devel, R appears to go into an infinite loop.

I'm not sure we'll fix R 2.15.x unless it's a relatively easy fix,
but
I'll try to get R-devel to at least report an error.

Duncan Murdoch

>
> Here's an example that avoids a lot of unnecessary code:
>
> L1<- list(one=1:1e6, two=1:1e6, three=1:1e6)
> # no issue with smaller list elements
> U1<- unlist(L1, recursive=TRUE, use.names=TRUE)
> C1<- c(L1, recursive=TRUE, use.names=TRUE)
>
> L2<- list(one=1:1e7, two=1:1e7, three=1:1e7)
> # crashes after ~2min with error above
> U2<- unlist(L2, recursive=TRUE, use.names=TRUE)
> C2<- c(L2, recursive=TRUE, use.names=TRUE)
> # no issue if use.names=FALSE
> U3<- unlist(L2, recursive=TRUE, use.names=FALSE)
> C3<- c(L2, recursive=TRUE, use.names=FALSE)
>
> I took a look at do_unlist and do_c_dflt in bind.c, but I stopped at
> NewExtractNames because it is a bit beyond my current understanding.
> Any thoughts?
>
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 2.15.0 (2012-03-30)
> Platform: i386-pc-mingw32/i386 (32-bit)
>
> locale:
> [1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252
> [2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252
> [3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
> [4] LC_NUMERIC=C
> [5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
>
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
>
> Please let me know if I forgot anything or if there's anything I can do
to help.
>
> Best,
> --
> Joshua Ulrich  |  FOSS Trading: www.fosstrading.com
>
> R/Finance 2012: Applied Finance with R
> www.RinFinance.com
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel