[R] File opening error after 1020 files opened

[Jonathan Q. Li]

Hi,

I am trying to use "read.pnm" from the package "pixmap" to read more 
than 10 thousand image files in "mydir".

 > file.list <- dir( "mydir", full=T)
 > for( i in 1:length(file.list) ) {
    print(i)
    x <- read.pnm(file.list[i])
}

In the beginning it was fine. But after reading 1020 images or so, the 
read.pnm function
seems to crash on me:

[1] 1017
[1] 1018
[1] 1019
[1] 1020
Error in open.connection(con, open = "rb") :
        unable to open connection
In addition: Warning message:
cannot open file `/mydir/myfile1020.ppm'

Then the R environment seems to crash too because I can't read any other 
files anymore. Neither can I use function "dir".

dir("mydir")
character(0)
Warning message:
list.files: "mydir" is not a readable directory

I quit R and close all other applications and come back. The problem is 
easily repeated.
THe following is my system information. The linux version is Redhat 8.0.

 > R.version
         _
platform i686-pc-linux-gnu
arch     i686
os       linux-gnu
system   i686, linux-gnu
status
major    1
minor    6.1
year     2002
month    11
day      01
language R


Your help is highly appreciated!
Best Regards,
Jonathan