[R] memory problems with lm

[Adrian Dragulescu]

Hello list,

I've seen the recent discussions documenting problems with lm.

I have encountered the following problem.  I use WinXP Pro with
service pack 1, and R 1.9.0, on a XEON 2GHz, with 1GB of RAM.

> eff.fro
              std.dev         mean
NSTRDSP  7.403749e-01 1.215686e-01
CPFGEP   9.056763e+00 1.815686e+00
WSWOLF   4.703588e+05 1.112832e+05
NPILGRIM 1.017640e+06 2.134335e+05
WSNMILE  1.367312e+07 1.892021e+06
WSHIDESL 1.830811e+07 1.892021e+06
> reg <- lm(log(mean) ~ log(std.dev), data=eff.fro)
Error in model.matrix.default(mt, mf, contrasts) :
        cannot allocate vector of length 1074790452
> log(eff.fro$mean)
[1] -2.1072763  0.5964635 11.6198339 12.2710808 14.4531561
[6] 14.4531561
> reg <- lm(log(eff.fro$mean) ~ log(eff.fro$std.dev))
Error: cannot allocate vector of size 3360077 Kb
> lef <- log(eff.fro)
> lef
            std.dev       mean
NSTRDSP  -0.3005986 -2.1072763
CPFGEP    2.2035117  0.5964635
WSWOLF   13.0612512 11.6198339
NPILGRIM 13.8329973 12.2710808
WSNMILE  16.4309427 14.4531561
WSHIDESL 16.7228546 14.4531561
> lef <- log(eff.fro)
> reg <- lm(lef$mean ~ lef$std.dev)

Here the my computer completely crashed.  A window poped-up and said
memory problem at address ..., and if I want to debug.

I ran the same code one more time, and it worked but it did not work
how I wanted (where is the slope?):
> reg <- lm(lef$mean ~ lef$std.dev)
> reg

Call:
lm(formula = lef$mean ~ lef$std.dev)

Coefficients:
(Intercept)
      8.548

>
> summary(reg)

Call:
lm(formula = lef$mean ~ lef$std.dev)

Residuals:
      1       2       3       4       5       6
-10.655  -7.951   3.072   3.723   5.905   5.905

Coefficients:
            Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept)    8.548      2.999    2.85   0.0358 *
---
Signif. codes:  0 `***' 0.001 `**' 0.01 `*' 0.05 `.' 0.1 ` ' 1

Residual standard error: 7.346 on 5 degrees of freedom

I ran again:

  reg <- lm(log(mean) ~ log(std.dev), data=eff.fro)

and I get the pop-up:
The instruction at "0x6b4c45a5" referenced memory at "0x0032374a".
The memory could not be "read".  Click OK to terminate the program.


Any ideas?  Thank you,
Adrian