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Memory problem ? (PR#814)

Z.Barta@bristol.ac.uk 
Dear R-developers,

I have the following problem with R: When I try to scan a big file R
is sometimes killed by the operation system (after spinning the hard
disk for 10 minutes or so) or sometimes my X Window collapses. This
problem occurs only if I have many applications (e.g. Emacs, 
gnumeric, two gv, netscape) open at the same
time. On the other hand, if I use read.table() R reads the file without
problems even if many applications also open. 

I do not know whether this is a bug or I do something wrong. Please
let me know what is the case.

The details are given below. Please do not hesitate to contact me if
you need more information.


Many thanks,


Zoltan Barta



The details:
_                
platform i386-pc-linux-gnu
arch     i386             
os       linux-gnu        
system   i386, linux-gnu  
status                    
major    1                
minor    2.0              
year     2000             
month    12               
day      15               
language R
Read 92669 lines
Killed

The file O.dat.R:
O.dat <- function(nev){
  f.nev <- paste(nev,".dat",sep="");
  what.l <- list(year=numeric(),week=numeric(),bird=numeric(),
                 event=character(),moult=character(),action=character(),
                 res=numeric(),fea1=numeric(),ml1=numeric(),brood=numeric(),
                 exper=numeric(),loc=numeric(),uval=numeric());
  data.frame(scan(f.nev,what=what.l,skip=1));
}


The first ten rows of the file "food12.dat":
year	week	bird	event	moult	action	res	fea1	ml1	brood	exper	loc	uval
0	15	0	SUBST	NOMOULT	DELAY	5	10	0	0	0	1	0.347214
0	15	1	SUBST	NOMOULT	DELAY	5	10	0	0	0	1	0.347214
0	15	2	SUBST	NOMOULT	DELAY	5	10	0	0	0	1	0.347214
0	15	3	SUBST	NOMOULT	DELAY	5	10	0	0	0	1	0.347214
0	15	4	SUBST	NOMOULT	DELAY	5	10	0	0	0	1	0.347214
0	15	5	SUBST	NOMOULT	DELAY	5	10	0	0	0	1	0.347214
0	15	6	SUBST	NOMOULT	DELAY	5	10	0	0	0	1	0.347214
0	15	7	SUBST	NOMOULT	DELAY	5	10	0	0	0	1	0.347214
0	15	8	SUBST	NOMOULT	DELAY	5	10	0	0	0	1	0.347214

the file contains lines of similar data and it is generated by a Monte Carlo
simulation. 

My system:
Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 (potato)
Kernel 2.2.15
libc6 2.2-4
Memory: 60 MB
Swap 72 MB







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