[R] limits of a data frame size for reading into R

[Dimitri Liakhovitski]

Thanks a lot, it's very helpful!
Dimitri

On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 03/08/2010 1:10 PM, Dimitri Liakhovitski wrote:
>>
>> I understand the question I am about to ask is rather vague and
>> depends on the task and my PC memory. However, I'll give it a try:
>>
>> Let's assume the goal is just to read in the data frame into R and
>> then do some simple analyses with it (e.g., multiple regression of
>> some variables onto some - just a few - variables).
>>
>> Is there a limit to the number of columns of a data frame that R can
>> handle? I am asking because where I work many use SAS and they are
>> running into the limit of >~13,700columns there.
>>
>> Since I am asking - is there a limit to the number of rows?
>>
>> Or is the correct way of asking the question: my PC's memory is X. The
>> .txt tab-delimited file I am trying to read in has the size of YYY Mb,
>> can I read it in?
>>
>
> Besides what Jim said, there is a 2^31-1 limit on the number of elements in
> a vector.  Dataframes are vectors of vectors, so you can have at most 2^31-1
> rows and 2^31-1 columns.  Matrices are vectors, so they're limited to 2^31-1
> elements in total.
> This is only likely to be a limitation on a 64 bit machine; in 32 bits
> you'll run out of memory first.
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>



-- 
Dimitri Liakhovitski
Ninah Consulting
www.ninah.com