[R] tools:::fetchRdDB can't allocate memory block?

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Fri, 8 Oct 2010, Ken Williams wrote:

> I'm developing an R package, and when I recompile (using Roxygen),
> detach, and re-load the package, I can't seem to look at some of its
> documented functions.  When I try '?function.name', I get the
> following error:
>
>  Error in tools:::fetchRdDB(RdDB, basename(file)) :
>    cannot allocate memory block of size 2.6 Gb
>
> I'm using R.app's built-in documentation viewer.
>
> I don't get the same error when I look at the docs for built-in
> functions, e.g. '?cos' works fine.
>
> Most of the .Rd files spit out by Roxygen are very simple, e.g. here's
> one that fails to be viewed, it has only 4 lines:
>
> in man/ndcg.Rd:
> \name{ndcg}
> \alias{ndcg}
> \title{ndcg}
> \usage{ndcg(pr, position=5, ...)}
>
>
> Anyone have any thoughts?

(1) Package development is an R-devel topic -- please see the posting 
guide.

(2) Either the package has an enormous amount of documentation or 
(more likely) the on-disc .Rd database for the package is corrupt. 
Have you tried removing completely any previous installation and 
re-installing -- that usually fixes similar errors?

(3) The 'minimal, self-contained, reproducible code' comment is likely 
to apply if (2) does not solve this.

> Here's my R.version:

Next time please give the information in the format the posting guide 
requested.

[...]

> version.string R version 2.11.1 (2010-05-31)
>
>
> Thanks.
>
> -Ken

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595