[Rd] RObjectTables freezes in R 3.2.0 RC on 32bit systems

Jeroen Ooms
2015-04-15T01:29:51Z

We recently started noticing freezes that appear only on 32bit systems
(both linux and windows) with a relatively recent versions of R 3.2.0,
including the RC. It looks like the problem can be traced back to the use
of R_ObjectTables (see R_ext/Callbacks.h)

The problem is a bit difficult to reproduce because it does not appear on
x64 and because the official R interface to this functionality, the
RObjectTables package from OmegaHat, is no longer maintained. I created a
slightly updated version of RObjectTables package (added a NAMESPACE file)
to reproduce the problem:

  devtools::install_github("jeroenooms/RObjectTables")

The problem can be triggered using the included example from the
DirectoryObjectTable manual.

  library(RObjectTables)
  db <- DirectoryObjectTable(tempdir())
  dbwrite(db, "x", 1:10)
  dbwrite(db, "y", letters[1:3])
  dbobjects(db)
  dbread(db, "x")
  attach(newRFunctionTable(db), name = "myRData")

Things work as expected up till dbread(), but once the object-table is
attached, R freezes on 32bit whereas it works as expected on 64bit.

The same problem appears for other packages that are calling the object
tables C interfaces directly without using the RObjectTables R package.

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