[R] why is object.size is more for constant numeric vector?

[Gabor Grothendieck]

Note this:

> class(rep(1, 3))
[1] "numeric"
> class(1:3)
[1] "integer"


On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 3:16 PM, Utkarsh Singhal <utkarsh.iit at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I ran the following lines in R:
>
> print(object.size(a <- rep(1,10^6)),units="Mb")
> print(object.size(a <- rep(3.542,10^6)),units="Mb")
>
> print(object.size(b <- rep("x",10^6)),units="Mb")
> print(object.size(b <- rep("xyzxyz xyz",10^6)),units="Mb")
> print(object.size(b <- 1:10^6),units="Mb")
> print(object.size(b <- rep(1:10,each=10^5)),units="Mb")
> print(object.size(b <- rep(TRUE,10^6)),units="Mb")
>
> The object size from first two lines is 7.6 MB, but from the last five it is
> 3.8 MB, although the length of vector is same.
>
> Apparently, the size of any vector of a given length is twice if the vector
> is numeric constant than if it is not.
>
> Why is it so? Is my observation wrong? Or, is there some catch with
> 'object.size'?
>
> Thanks in advance.
> Regards
> Utkarsh
>
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