[R] tree in tree package - Error: cannot allocate vector of size 2.0 Gb

[David Winsemius]

On May 31, 2013, at 2:38 PM, Stephen Sefick wrote:

> R version 3.0.0 (2013-04-03)
> Platform: x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu (64-bit)
> 
> locale:
> [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.utf8       LC_NUMERIC=C
> [3] LC_TIME=en_US.utf8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.utf8
> [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.utf8    LC_MESSAGES=en_US.utf8
> [7] LC_PAPER=C                LC_NAME=C
> [9] LC_ADDRESS=C              LC_TELEPHONE=C
> [11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.utf8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
> 
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
> 
> 
> 6GB RAM, intel core2 quad, Scientific Linux 6.4
> 
> I am using tree in the tree package.  and I get the following error:
> 
> Error: cannot allocate vector of size 2.0 Gb
> 
> shouldn't I be able to allocate more memory than 2GB?

I believe that should be read as "unable to allocate contiguous block of memory for a new object of size 2Gb".

The general rule is that you should have at least 3 times the free (non-OS/non-other-running-applications) RAM as the size of your largest objects. You seem to be in violation of that rule. 

-- 

David Winsemius
Alameda, CA, USA