[R] Error: C stack usage is too close to the limit when using list.files()

[William Dunlap]

Do you have some symbolic links that make loops in your file system?
list.files() has problems with such loops and find does not.  E.g.,  on a Linux box:

% cd /tmp
% mkdir dir dir/subdir
% cd dir/subdir
% ln -s ../../dir linkToUpperDir
% cd /tmp
% R --quiet
> list.files("dir", recursive=TRUE, full=TRUE)
[1] "dir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir"
> system("find dir")
dir
dir/subdir
dir/subdir/linkToUpperDir

Bill Dunlap
Spotfire, TIBCO Software
wdunlap tibco.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf
> Of Jonathan Greenberg
> Sent: Friday, September 27, 2013 12:13 PM
> To: r-help
> Subject: [R] Error: C stack usage is too close to the limit when using list.files()
> 
> R-helpers:
> 
> I'm running a file search on my entire drive (Mac OS X) using:
> 
> files_found <- list.files(dir="/",pattern=somepattern,recursive=TRUE,full.names=TRUE)
> where somepattern is a search pattern (which I have confirmed via a
> unix "find / -name somepattern" only returns ~ 3 results).
> 
> I keep getting an error:
> 
> Error: C stack usage is too close to the limit
> 
> when running this command.  Any ideas on 1) how to fix this or 2) if
> there is an alternative to using list.files() to accomplish this
> search without resorting to an external package?
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> --jonathan
> 
> 
> --
> Jonathan A. Greenberg, PhD
> Assistant Professor
> Global Environmental Analysis and Remote Sensing (GEARS) Laboratory
> Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science
> University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
> 259 Computing Applications Building, MC-150
> 605 East Springfield Avenue
> Champaign, IL  61820-6371
> Phone: 217-300-1924
> http://www.geog.illinois.edu/~jgrn/
> AIM: jgrn307, MSN: jgrn307 at hotmail.com, Gchat: jgrn307, Skype: jgrn3007
> 
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