Question

Why do I get R-crashing segfaults when specifying custom linetypes in R? The four linetypes below are effectively identical, in that they cycle through the same size of dashes and spaces in the same order (they just start at different points in the cycle).

plot.new()
abline(0.1,0,lty='28282383') # works
abline(0.2,0,lty='83282823') # works
abline(0.3,0,lty='28238328') # segfault
abline(0.4,0,lty='23832828') # segfault

Here is the full error message for the first of the two deadly lines above:

 *** caught segfault ***
address 0xbf981000, cause 'memory not mapped'
Segmentation fault

Answer 1

Looks like a bug in the Cairo graphics device – I get a crash with a default X11() graphics device but not with X11(type="Xlib") or pdf(). RStudio possibly works because it possibly uses its own methods to capture the graphics.

I don’t see anything about this in the description of 2.15.1-patched:

http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/NEWS.R-2.15.1patched.html

so I tried that and have now reported it as a bug:

https://bugs.r-project.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=15055