Toss a couple of extra files in there and you will see the output grow exponentially.
% touch dir/IMPORTANT_1 dir/subdir/IMPORTANT_2 and in R those two new files cause 82 more strings to appear in list.file's output: > nchar(list.files("dir", recursive=TRUE)) [1] 11 18 33 40 55 62 77 84 99 106 121 128 143 150 165 172 187 194 209 [20] 216 231 238 253 260 275 282 297 304 319 326 341 348 363 370 385 392 407 414 [39] 429 436 451 458 473 480 495 502 517 524 539 546 561 568 583 590 605 612 627 [58] 634 649 656 671 678 693 700 715 722 737 744 759 766 781 788 803 810 825 832 [77] 847 854 869 876 891 898 901 'find', by default, does not following symbolic links. % find dir dir dir/subdir dir/subdir/IMPORTANT_2 dir/subdir/linkToUpperDir dir/IMPORTANT_1 The -L option makes it follow them, but it won't follow loops: % find -L dir dir dir/subdir dir/subdir/IMPORTANT_2 find: File system loop detected; `dir/subdir/linkToUpperDir' is part of the same file system loop as `dir'. dir/IMPORTANT_1 Bill Dunlap Spotfire, TIBCO Software wdunlap tibco.com > -----Original Message----- > From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On > Behalf > Of William Dunlap > Sent: Friday, September 27, 2013 12:56 PM > To: Jonathan Greenberg; r-help > Subject: Re: [R] Error: C stack usage is too close to the limit when using > list.files() > > Do you have some symbolic links that make loops in your file system? > list.files() has problems with such loops and find does not. E.g., on a > Linux box: > > % cd /tmp > % mkdir dir dir/subdir > % cd dir/subdir > % ln -s ../../dir linkToUpperDir > % cd /tmp > % R --quiet > > list.files("dir", recursive=TRUE, full=TRUE) > [1] > "dir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToU > pperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkT > oUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/li > nkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdi > r/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/su > bdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir > /subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpper > Dir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUp > perDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkTo > UpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/lin > kToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir/subdir/linkToUpperDir" > > system("find dir") > dir > dir/subdir > dir/subdir/linkToUpperDir > > Bill Dunlap > Spotfire, TIBCO Software > wdunlap tibco.com > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On > > Behalf > > Of Jonathan Greenberg > > Sent: Friday, September 27, 2013 12:13 PM > > To: r-help > > Subject: [R] Error: C stack usage is too close to the limit when using > > list.files() > > > > R-helpers: > > > > I'm running a file search on my entire drive (Mac OS X) using: > > > > files_found <- > > list.files(dir="/",pattern=somepattern,recursive=TRUE,full.names=TRUE) > > where somepattern is a search pattern (which I have confirmed via a > > unix "find / -name somepattern" only returns ~ 3 results). > > > > I keep getting an error: > > > > Error: C stack usage is too close to the limit > > > > when running this command. Any ideas on 1) how to fix this or 2) if > > there is an alternative to using list.files() to accomplish this > > search without resorting to an external package? > > > > Cheers! > > > > --jonathan > > > > > > -- > > Jonathan A. Greenberg, PhD > > Assistant Professor > > Global Environmental Analysis and Remote Sensing (GEARS) Laboratory > > Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science > > University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign > > 259 Computing Applications Building, MC-150 > > 605 East Springfield Avenue > > Champaign, IL 61820-6371 > > Phone: 217-300-1924 > > http://www.geog.illinois.edu/~jgrn/ > > AIM: jgrn307, MSN: jgrn...@hotmail.com, Gchat: jgrn307, Skype: jgrn3007 > > > > ______________________________________________ > > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.