[R] Error: cannot allocate vector of size 3.0 Gb

[Uwe Ligges]

Dear John,

note that you "Date" is a factor rather than some date object.
If you convert it to some date object, just a few megabytes will suffice!

Best wishes,
Uwe




John wrote:
> On Friday 28 March 2008 14:28, Daniel Nordlund wrote:
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org]
>>> On Behalf Of John
>>> Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 12:04 PM
>>> To: r-help at r-project.org
>>> Subject: [R] Error: cannot allocate vector of size 3.0 Gb
>>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I have read recent posts on this topic (Dr. Ronnen Levinson's Monday
>>> 02:39:55 pm), but before I install a 64 bit system, and purchase more
>>> RAM, I want to make sure I understand this interesting issue.
>>>
>>> I was attempting to plot a data frame containing Dow Jones stock 
> information:
>>>> length(Date)
>>> [1] 19957
>>>
>>>> length(Close)
>>> [1] 19957
>>>
>>>> head(DowJones)
>>>       Date     Open     High      Low    Close     Volume Adj.Close
>>> 1 03/26/08 12531.79 12531.79 12309.62 12422.86 4055670000  12422.86
>>> 2 03/25/08 12547.34 12639.82 12397.62 12532.60 4145120000  12532.60
>>> 3 03/24/08 12361.97 12687.61 12346.17 12548.64 4499000000  12548.64
>>> 4 03/20/08 12102.43 12434.34 12024.68 12361.32 2078450000  12361.32
>>> 5 03/19/08 12391.52 12525.19 12077.27 12099.66 1203830000  12099.66
>>> 6 03/18/08 11975.92 12411.63 11975.92 12392.66 1263390000  12392.66
>>>
>>>> tail(DowJones)
>>>           Date   Open   High    Low  Close  Volume Adj.Close
>>> 19952 10/08/28 240.17 243.33 237.72 239.55 3940000    239.55
>>> 19953 10/05/28 240.00 243.08 238.22 240.44 4360000    240.44
>>> 19954 10/04/28 237.75 242.53 237.72 240.00 4330000    240.00
>>> 19955 10/03/28 238.14 239.14 233.60 237.75 4060000    237.75
>>> 19956 10/02/28 240.01 241.54 235.42 238.14 3850000    238.14
>>> 19957 10/01/28 239.43 242.46 238.24 240.01 3500000    240.01
>>>
>>>> plot(Date, Close)
>>> Error: cannot allocate vector of size 3.0 Gb
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I currently have installed R 2.60, from source, onto Linux SuSE 10.2. I
>>>
>>> believe it is a 32 bit install:
>>>> dmesg | grep bit
>>>> ...
>>>> hpet0: 3 32-bit timers, 25000000 Hz
>>> I have 1GB of RAM, with circa 883.61 not allocated to hardware after
>>> boot. I naively thought 19957 rows of data would be easily handled by a
>>> fairly new computer. R was able to cease execution, and place control
>>> back onto its interpreter, while a Chart attempt in OpenOffice locks up
>>> OpenOffice.
>>>
>>> So,  will installation of a 64 bit Operating System, and at least an
>>> additional 1GB of RAM  suffice to generate memory space for a 3.0 Gb
>>> vector, in R?
>> John,
>>
>> Am I missing something here?  You have one 1 GB of RAM, you want to get a
>> second 1 GB of RAM, and you want to know if you will be able to create a 3
>> GB vector?  With or without a 64bit OS, I don't think you will be
>> successful.  In addition to total memory available, I believe you need to
>> have sufficient contiguous memory to allocate an object.  If memory is
>> fragmented, you won't be able to create the vector, even if the total free
>> space is sufficient.  If I am incorrect, I'm sure someone will be along to
>> correct me shortly.
>>
>> Hope this is helpful,
>>
>> Dan
>>
>> Daniel Nordlund
>> Bothell, WA
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal,
>> self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
> 
> Hi Daniel,
> 
> Thank you for the information. It has saved me from needlessly installing a 
> 64-bit linux instance. In the short term, I'll try and generate multiple 
> graphs, side by side. And purchase more RAM. A lot more.
> 
> Enjoying the notion of multiple plots in R,
> 
> John
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.