Limit of file size for truncate in R

Question

From ?truncate:

truncate truncates a file opened for writing at its current position. It works only for file connections, and is not implemented on all platforms: on others (including Windows) it will not work for large (> 2Gb) files.

What is the cause of the 2Gb limit on Windows? Does it matter if it's 64bit Windows, or the file system is NTFS? Does the version of Windows matter (XP, 7, 8, 10)?

Is there a built-in R function or a function in some R package that achieves the same effect on Windows as truncate on Unix-like systems?

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 22 '15 at 19:20

2

According to the source, a missing 64-bit version of the underlying ftruncate system call. It seems that this issue can/will be resolved when the MinGW used to build R is updated.
No.
No.
The Win32 API is called SetEndOfFile, and a GitHub search for CRAN packages found eight hits. Good luck :-)

answered Sep 22 '15 at 19:20

krlmlr

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Could you please have a look at the updated question? – qed Sep 23 '15 at 09:32
@qed: Why don't you ask a follow-up question? – krlmlr Sep 23 '15 at 09:42
There you go: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32736335/truncate-large-file-on-windows – qed Sep 23 '15 at 09:53

Limit of file size for truncate in R

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