[Rd] maximum matrix size

[Therneau, Terry M., Ph.D.]

I am now getting the occasional complaint about survival routines that are not able to 
handle big data.   I looked in the manuals to try and update my understanding of max 
vector size, max matrix, max data set, etc; but it is either not there or I missed it (the 
latter more likely).   Is it still .Machine$integer.max for everything?   Will that 
change?   Found where?

I am going to need to go through the survival package and put specific checks in front 
some or all of my .Call() statements, in order to give a sensible message whenever a 
bounday is struck.  A well meaning person just posted a suggested "bug fix" to the github 
source of one routine where my .C call allocates a scratch vector, suggesting  "resid = 
double( as.double(n) *nvar)" to prevent a "NA produced by integer overflow" message,  in 
the code below.   A fix is obvously not quite that easy :-)

         resid <- .C(Ccoxscore, as.integer(n),
                 as.integer(nvar),
                 as.double(y),
                 x=as.double(x),
                 as.integer(newstrat),
                 as.double(score),
                 as.double(weights[ord]),
                 as.integer(method=='efron'),
                 resid= double(n*nvar),
                 double(2*nvar))$resid

Terry T.


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