[R] sparc64 vs i386 memory usage

[Christopher Quale]

I have an R function that uses a shared library
written in C. The memory allocation is done using
calloc and free (I tried using R_alloc, but although
it would compile, R would crash... is there a FAQ with
more info on R_alloc? I couldn't find an answer in the
documentation...). There are no memory leaks in my C code 
(i have triple checked). The code also uses the coxph 
function from survival5.

The function gets called repeatedly as part of a 
simulation, and I noticed that on i386 linux, the 
memory aggregates, and thus I can only run 75 
iterations before I start to run out of memory. 
When I quit out of R, the memory gets freed. 

However, when I run the same code recompiled on
a sparc64, the memory aggregation is not nearly
as bad (if any) and I can run the simulation as
many iterations as I need without this memory
problem.

My questions:
1. Is this due to a difference in the different
ports of linux (or a 64 vs 32 bit issue)?
2. Is it due to R?
3. Would using R_alloc fix this situation?

Info:
R version 1.0.0 (IIRC) on both machines
RedHat Linux 6.1 on i386
RedHat Linux 6.2 on sparc64

Thanks for your help,
Chris
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