[BioC] R matrix size limits and array data

[Rob Dunne]

Hi,

I am hitting the 2^31-1 limit on array entries in loading and normalizing
a set of exon arrays. The oligo package uses "ff" if you have it loaded but ff
seems to have the same limit.

I have modified some routines from an older version of oligo (1.10.4) to use
big.matrix from the big.memory package. This necessitated making big.matrix
methods for is.matrix, annotatedDataFrameFrom, and possibly some other things. 
It works but is probably very fragile. 

How are other people handling the  2^(31)-1 limit on matrix sizes?

R