[R] Memory issues..

[Thomas W Blackwell]

Jesper  -  (off-list)

Jim MacDonald reports seeing different memory-management behavior
between Windows and Linux operating systems on the same, dual boot
machine.  Unfortunately, this is happening at the operating system
level, so the R code cannot do anything about it.  I have cc'ed
Jim on this email, hoping that he will give more details to the
entire list.  What operating systems (and versions of R) do you
think Rodrigo and Jesper are using ?

Specifically for Jesper's  AnalyzeAssay() function:  There is some
manipulation you can do using  formula()  or  as.formula()  that will
assign a local object as the environment in which to find values for
the terms in a formula.  (I've never done this, so I can't give you
an example of working code, only references to the help pages for
"formula" and "environment".  It's often very instructive to literally
type in the sequence of statements given as examples at the bottom
of each help page.)  I think this will allow you to avoid assigning
to the global workspace.

Are you sure that the call to  rm() below is actually removing the
copy of limsdata that's in .GlobalEnv, rather than a local copy ?
I would expect you to have to specify  where=1  in order to get the
behavior you want.

-  tom blackwell  -  u michigan medical school  -  ann arbor  -

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003, JFRI (Jesper Frickman) wrote:

> How much processing takes place before you get to the lme call? Maybe R
> has just used up the memory on something else. I think there is a fair
> amount of memory leak, as I get similar problems with my program. I use
> R 1.8.0. My program goes as follows.
>
> 1. Use RODBC to get a data.frame containing assays to analyze (17 assays
> are found).
> 2. Define an AnalyzeAssay(assay, suffix) function to do the following:
> 	a) Use RODBC to get data.
> 	b) Store dataset "limsdata" in workspace using the <<- operator
> to avoid the following error in qqnorm.lme: Error in eval(expr, envir,
> enclos) : Object "limsdata" not found, when I call it with a grouping
> formula like: ~ resid(.) | ORDCURV.
> 	c) Call lme to analyze data.
> 	d) Produce some diagnostic plots. Record them by setting
> record=TRUE on the trellis.device
> 	e) Save the plots on win.metafile using replayPlot(...)
> 	f) Save text to a file using sink(...)
>
> 3. Call the function for each assay using the code:
>
> # Analyze each assay
> for(i in 1:length(assays[,1]))
> {
> 	writeLines(paste("Analyzing ", assays$DILUTION[i], " ",
> assays$PROFNO[i], "...", sep=""))
> 	flush.console()
> 	AnalyzeAssay(assays$DILUTION[i], assays$PROFNO[i])
>
> 	# Clean up memory
> 	rm(limsdata)
> 	gc()
> }
>
> As you can see, I try to remove the dataset stored in workspace and then
> call gc() to clean up my memory as I go.
>
> Nevertheless, when I come to assay 11 out of 17, it stops with a memory
> allocation error. I have to quit R, and start again with assay 11, then
> it stops again with assay 15 and finally 17. The last assays have much
> more data than the first ones, but all assays can be completed as long
> as I keep restarting...
>
> Maybe restarting the job can help you getting it done?
>
> Cheers,
> Jesper
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rodrigo Abt [mailto:rodrigo.abt at sii.cl]
> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 11:02 AM
> To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: [R] Memory issues..
>
>
> Hi dear R-listers, I'm trying to fit a 3-level model using lme in R. My
> sample size is about 2965 and 3 factors:
>
> year (5 levels), ssize (4 levels), condition (2 levels).
>
> When I issue the following command:
>
> >
> lme(var~year*ssize*condition,random=~ssize+condition|subject,data=smp,me
> thod
> ="ML")
>
> I got the following error:
>
> Error in logLik.lmeStructInt(lmeSt, lmePars) :
>         Calloc could not allocate (65230 of 8) memory
> In addition: Warning message:
> Reached total allocation of 120Mb: see help(memory.size)
>
> I'm currently using a Win2000 machine with 128Mb RAM and a 1.2 Gb
> processor. My version of R is 1.7.1.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Rodrigo Abt.
> Department of Economic and Tributary Studies,
> SII, Chile.
>
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