big.matrix-class: Class ``big.matrix''.
Description
The big.matrix class is designed for matrices with
elements of type double, integer, short, or char.
A big.matrix acts much like a traditional R matrix, but helps protect
the user from many inadvertant memory-consuming pitfalls of traditional R
matrices and data frames. The objects may be allocated to shared memory,
and if file backing is used they may exceed virtual memory in size. Sadly,
32-bit R constraints on Windows and many MacOS machines will be a limiting
factor with file-backed matrices.Objects from the Class
Objects can be created by calls of the form new("big.matrix", ...).
The functions big.matrix(), shared.big.matrix(),
and filebacked.big.matrix() are intended for the user.