[Bioc-devel] Increasing MAX_BUFLENGTH in S4Vectors src/AEbufs.c

[Peter Hickey]

I hit an error when calling reduce() on a very big GRanges object
(length = 1170402558). The error was:

Error in .Call2("CompressedIRangesList_reduce", x, drop.empty.ranges,  :
   _get_new_buflength(): MAX_BUFLENGTH reached

I found MAX_BUFLENGTH is defined in S4Vectors in the file src/AEbufs.c as:

#define MAX_BUFLENGTH_INC (32 * 1024 * 1024)
#define MAX_BUFLENGTH (32 * MAX_BUFLENGTH_INC)

So I experimentally increased the limit in a local copy. I first set
it to twice the current value (which errored on R CMD check, I think
because that makes MAX_BUFLENGTH > the maximum allowable integer), but
by setting it to 1.5 times its current limit I got (A) an apparently
working copy of S4Vectors and (B) the original code now ran without
error.

So, is it safe to increase MAX_BUFLENGTH or am I missing some important details?

Thanks,
Pete