I think you might get a more useful answer if you say what you want to
achieve.
"address(x)" does not give you an address of variable "x" but of an
object bound to x. The GC in R is non-moving, it does not relocate
objects. However, a number of things can happen that will change the
binding of "x" to point to a (modified) copy of the original object
(such as replacement operations like x[3] <- 4 or class(x) <- "foo").
When these copies are made is implementation dependent and may change
between R versions or may become unpredictable to the R program. An R
program should only depend on values stored in an object, not on the
location of that object, and this is also why "address(x)" is not part
of the base packages.
Best
Tomas
On 09/08/2017 04:08 PM, lille stor wrote:
Hi,
I would like to know if the Garbage Collector (GC) changes the address of a variable in R. In other words, assuming the following code:
library(pryr)
x <- 1:1024
addr <- address(x) # save address of variable "x" in "addr"
.
.
.
(execution of operations that create/destroy many small/big objects in
memory, which will likely make the GC to be called)
.
.
.
if (addr != address(x))
{
print("Address of x changed!")
}
Will the message "Address of x changed!" be ever printed?
Thank you!
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