[R] Problem with nested functions - functions nested too deeply in source code

Maximilian Kofler maximilian.kofler at umit.at
Fri May 7 14:21:47 CEST 2010


Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan <at> gmail.com> writes:


> I doubt if that was the error message.  More likely you saw
> 
> Error: evaluation nested too deeply: infinite recursion / 
> options(expressions=)?

Exactly this was the error message I recieved
 
>This isn't a case of the source being nested to deeply, but rather of the 
>evaluation being nested too deeply.  
> This happens in recursive algorithms when R runs out of 
> stack space, around 5000 calls deep.  Is it likely in your dataset that 
> a recursion depth of 5000 is reasonable?  In most cases this indicates a 
> programming error that leads to an infinite recursion, but there are 
> probably cases where a depth like that is reasonable.

I don't think that it is a programming error, because I succeyyfully 
calculated subgraph isomirphism with the algorithm, but with 
smaller input graphs. So the algorithm seems to work. 
I already tried to set options(expressions=500000), but 
then I cause a protection stack overflow: 

error:  protect(): protection stack overflow

Is the problem that too many objects are stored in the stack? 
If yes, somebody knows how to solve this 
problem?

thanks for your replies



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