[R] Memory filling up while looping

Peter Meissner peter.meissner at uni-konstanz.de
Fri Dec 21 00:26:32 CET 2012


Hey,

I have an double loop like this:


chunk <- list(1:10, 11:20, 21:30)
for(k in 1:length(chunk)){
	print(chunk[k])
	DummyCatcher <- NULL
	for(i in chunk[k]){
		print("i load something")
		dummy <- 1
		print("i do something")
		dummy <- dummy + 1
		print("i do put it together")
		DummyCatcher = rbind(DummyCatcher, dummy)
	}
	print("i save a chunk and restart with another chunk of data")
}

The problem now is that with each 'chunk'-cycle the memory used by R 
becomes bigger and bigger until it exceeds my RAM but the RAM it needs 
for any of the chunk-cycles alone is only a 1/5th of what I have overall.

Does somebody have an idea why this behaviour might occur? Note that all 
the objects (like 'DummyCatcher') are reused every cycle so that I would 
assume that the RAM used should stay about the same after the first 
'chunk' cycle.


Best, Peter


SystemInfo:

R version 2.15.2 (2012-10-26)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Win7 Enterprise, 8 GB RAM



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