[GRASSLIST:1667] Re: s.surf.rst disk space problem

[Glynn Clements]

Jim Browne wrote:

> This has me stumped. I know this came up on the list about 2 years ago, but 
> that was of little help.
> 
>    I tried running:
>       s.surf.rst input=1999 elev=chl_a field=4 maskmap=water
> 
>       and several variations such as -t, dmin=10 and such. I keep getting the 
> error
>       "File size limit exceeded"
> 
>    Afterward there is then a new file in the .tmp diectory of 2 gig. I have no 
> quotas. Running ulimit shows unlimited. I am running Linux with ext3.
> 
>    I even tried using 'dd if=/dev/zero of=testfile bs=1024 count=3145728' from 
> within the GRASS> prompt, and produced a 3 gigb file in the same .tmp 
> directory! I also produced a 17 gig file!
> 
>    Why if s.surf.rst stopping at 2 gig when other programs don't?

GRASS doesn't attempt to use "large file support" (i.e. supporting
files whose sizes wouldn't fit into a "long"). This feature is risky,
so we don't use it (unlike certain OS vendors who just enable it by
default and wait for the bug reports to turn up).

If you want to handle files larger than 2Gb, you need a 64-bit
platform.

Alternatively, you could try enabling large file support yourself with
e.g.

CFLAGS='-g -O2 -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64' ./configure ...

although I offer no guarantee that this will actually work (i.e. it
may well cause crashes even when dealing with files smaller than 2Gb).

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn.clements at virgin.net>