[Rd] unlist crashes 32-bit R on WinXP when use.names=TRUE

[Joshua Ulrich]

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