R help - Feb 2005 - Memory Cap

Hi all

I am trying to use R for some data editing using the "array" function
to
write binary data to a text file. I realise that R was not designed for 
this purpose but I am no C programmer and would prefer to use R (as I 
know how to do it and hate c). Basically I get the following error.

Error: cannot allocate vector of size 1634069 kb

It seems that R is not keen on allocating memory to large arrays. I have 
attached the *.R file. Is there anyway that I could turn off the memory 
cap and allow R to take a larger set of data files.

Thanks Wesley


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If I'm not mistaken, you are dealing with a total of:
> 414180 * 1515 * 4 / 1024^2
[1] 2393.657

or close to 2.4GB, for a single copy of the (combined) array.  Unless you're
on a 64-bit OS running on hardware with sufficient physical RAM, that's not
likely to work so well.

Also, I believe you should close() the connections before rm() them.

Andy
> From: Wesley Roberts
> 
> Hi all
> 
> I am trying to use R for some data editing using the "array" 
> function to 
> write binary data to a text file. I realise that R was not 
> designed for 
> this purpose but I am no C programmer and would prefer to use R (as I 
> know how to do it and hate c). Basically I get the following error.
> 
> Error: cannot allocate vector of size 1634069 kb
> 
> It seems that R is not keen on allocating memory to large 
> arrays. I have 
> attached the *.R file. Is there anyway that I could turn off 
> the memory 
> cap and allow R to take a larger set of data files.
> 
> Thanks Wesley
> 
> 
>