[R] Error: C stack usage is too close to the limit

[Maarten Blaauw]

Lately R has been behaving strange on my Linux (Ubuntu 7.10) machine,  
with occasional segfaults. Today something else and reproducible  
happened:

If I type the code below (meant for calibrating data), I get the error  
message that "the C stack usage is too close to the limit".

calcurve <- cbind(1:2e4, 1:2e4, 1:2e3); #dummy curve, real one is more complex

caldist <- function(cage=Cage, error=Error, sdev=Sdev, times=Times, By=By)
  {
   theta <- seq(min(calcurve[,1]), max(calcurve[,1]), by=By);

   interpolate <- function(th, col)
    {
     if(th==calcurve[1,1]) {calcurve[1,col]}else
     if(th==calcurve[nrow(calcurve),1]) {calcurve[nrow(calcurve),col]}else
      {
       k <- min(which(calcurve[,1] > th));
       slope <-  
(calcurve[k-1,col]-calcurve[k,col])/(calcurve[k-1,1]-calcurve[k,1]);
       calcurve[k-1,col] + slope*(th-calcurve[k-1,1]);
      }
    }

   mu <- c();
   cerror <- c();
   for(i in 1:length(theta))
    {
     mu[i] <- interpolate(theta[i],2);
     cerror[i] <- interpolate(theta[i],3);
    }

   caldist <- dnorm(mu, cage, (error^2+cerror^2)^.5);
   cbind(theta, caldist/sum(caldist));
  }

caldist(1e3,1e2);

Unfortunately I am no huge computer wizard. Has anyone got any idea  
why this happens? Is it reproducible on other machines? How can I  
solve this problem?

My R:
R version 2.6.1 (2007-11-26)
i486-pc-linux-gnu

locale:
LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8;LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8;LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8;LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8;LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8;LC_NAME=C;LC_ADDRESS=C;LC_TELEPHONE=C;LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8;LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] rcompgen_0.1-17

Cstack_info()
       size    current  direction eval_depth
    8388608       2404          1          2

Many thanks,

Maarten Blaauw

-- 
Dr. Maarten Blaauw
School of Geography, Archaeology & Palaeoecology
Queen's University Belfast, U.K.
On leave from Department of Earth Sciences
Uppsala University, Sweden
maarten.blaauw at geo.uu.se