人们使用什么技巧来管理交互式R会话的可用内存?我使用下面的函数[基于Petr Pikal和David Hinds在2004年发布的r-help列表]来列出(和/或排序)最大的对象，并偶尔rm()其中一些对象。但到目前为止最有效的解决办法是……在64位Linux下运行，有充足的内存。
大家还有什么想分享的妙招吗?请每人寄一份。
# improved list of objects
.ls.objects <- function (pos = 1, pattern, order.by,
decreasing=FALSE, head=FALSE, n=5) {
napply <- function(names, fn) sapply(names, function(x)
fn(get(x, pos = pos)))
names <- ls(pos = pos, pattern = pattern)
obj.class <- napply(names, function(x) as.character(class(x))[1])
obj.mode <- napply(names, mode)
obj.type <- ifelse(is.na(obj.class), obj.mode, obj.class)
obj.size <- napply(names, object.size)
obj.dim <- t(napply(names, function(x)
as.numeric(dim(x))[1:2]))
vec <- is.na(obj.dim)[, 1] & (obj.type != "function")
obj.dim[vec, 1] <- napply(names, length)[vec]
out <- data.frame(obj.type, obj.size, obj.dim)
names(out) <- c("Type", "Size", "Rows", "Columns")
if (!missing(order.by))
out <- out[order(out[[order.by]], decreasing=decreasing), ]
if (head)
out <- head(out, n)
out
}
# shorthand
lsos <- function(..., n=10) {
.ls.objects(..., order.by="Size", decreasing=TRUE, head=TRUE, n=n)
}
For both speed and memory purposes, when building a large data frame via some complex series of steps, I'll periodically flush it (the in-progress data set being built) to disk, appending to anything that came before, and then restart it. This way the intermediate steps are only working on smallish data frames (which is good as, e.g., rbind slows down considerably with larger objects). The entire data set can be read back in at the end of the process, when all the intermediate objects have been removed.
dfinal <- NULL
first <- TRUE
tempfile <- "dfinal_temp.csv"
for( i in bigloop ) {
if( !i %% 10000 ) {
print( i, "; flushing to disk..." )
write.table( dfinal, file=tempfile, append=!first, col.names=first )
first <- FALSE
dfinal <- NULL # nuke it
}
# ... complex operations here that add data to 'dfinal' data frame
}
print( "Loop done; flushing to disk and re-reading entire data set..." )
write.table( dfinal, file=tempfile, append=TRUE, col.names=FALSE )
dfinal <- read.table( tempfile )
使用环境而不是列表来处理占用大量工作内存的对象集合。
原因是:每当列表结构的一个元素被修改时，整个列表都会被临时复制。如果列表的存储需求大约是可用工作内存的一半，这就会成为一个问题，因为这时必须将数据交换到慢速硬盘上。另一方面，环境不受这种行为的影响，它们可以类似于列表。
这里有一个例子:
get.data <- function(x)
{
# get some data based on x
return(paste("data from",x))
}
collect.data <- function(i,x,env)
{
# get some data
data <- get.data(x[[i]])
# store data into environment
element.name <- paste("V",i,sep="")
env[[element.name]] <- data
return(NULL)
}
better.list <- new.env()
filenames <- c("file1","file2","file3")
lapply(seq_along(filenames),collect.data,x=filenames,env=better.list)
# read/write access
print(better.list[["V1"]])
better.list[["V2"]] <- "testdata"
# number of list elements
length(ls(better.list))
结合结构，如大。矩阵或数据。表允许修改其内容的地方，非常有效的内存使用可以实现。
