[R] RE: [S] Dynamic Memory Allocation in R

[Thomas Lumley]

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003, Liaw, Andy wrote:

> > From: Gamal Abdel-Azim [mailto:gamal at crinet.com]
> >
> > While trying to expand the memory/object size in R, I noticed
> > that R might be using
> > only heap memory. Is this true? Are all objects in R created
> > in the heap not
> > allocated?

To the extent that this means anything it is true. All R objects are
stored in memory controlled by the R process, in two heaps.

The "g.data" package allows objects to be stored on disk and only loaded
as necessary.

>>		 It's not logical that this is the case!! Otherwise
> > the whole R project would
> > be a total waste of time and resources.

There appear to be some missing steps in this reasoning.

> > If I am wrong please inform me. How to increase memory.size
> > in R? Is there a way
> > similar to options(object.size=size) in S-Plus. Notice that
> > the command R --max- vsize=N targets the heap memory!

The --max-vsize option exists to *reduce* the maximum memory use, not to
increase it (at least under Unix).  You have access to all the memory your
operating system will give you.

> >
> > I have recently installed R on a Linux machine (3GB RAM and
> > sufficiently large HD).

Then you should be able to access nearly 4Gb in R, which is enough for
quite a lot of purposes.

> > Sorry for posting to Splus not R. But if R works only in the
> > heap, I may not need to
> > subscribe to R-news at all.

 !

	-thomas