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

[Dimitri Liakhovitski]

And once one above the limit that Jim indicated - is there anything one can do?
Thank you!
Dimitri


On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 2:12 PM, Dimitri Liakhovitski
<dimitri.liakhovitski at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>



-- 
Dimitri Liakhovitski
Ninah Consulting
www.ninah.com