[R] Maptools runs out of memory installing the help files for spCbind-methods

[Anthony Staines]

Hi,
I'd be grateful for help with the following:-

Running R version 2.9.2 (2009-08-24) on Gentoo Linux, on an
x86 PC. I am trying to install maptools, (via CRAN from
maptools_0.7-29.tar.gz'), for the first time.

All runs smoothly until the installation gets to
"*** installing help indices" for spCbind-methods, about two
thirds of the way through the help files, at which point the
installation hangs until R runs out of memory.
The last few lines of the output are :-
"sp2tmap                text    html    latex   example
spCbind-methods        text    html    latex   example
Out of memory!"
and it freezes.

Memory available as reported by
> gc()
         used (Mb) gc trigger (Mb) max used (Mb)
Ncells 133838  3.6     350000  9.4   350000  9.4
Vcells  81771  0.7     786432  6.0   406077  3.1

top, in another shell, reports that I am using almost all
the memory (2G) and almost all the swap (1G)

the command
perl /usr/lib/R/share/perl/build-help.pl --txt --html
--latex is running as well as R.

I tried this on an amd64 Linux system, and got exactly the
same results.

I've never seen this before, and I can't find any similar
issues in the bug tracker, or on the forums.

Any suggestions? Am I missing something that it needs?
Anthony
-- 
Anthony Staines, Professor of Health Systems Research,
School of Nursing, Dublin City University, Dublin 9,Ireland.
Tel:- +353 1 700 7807. Mobile:- +353 86 606 9713