pscoast attempts to allocate silly amount of memory

[Alisdair Tullo]

Binary package hint: gmt

Using gmt 4.3.1-3 in Ubuntu 9.04 (64 bit server).

$ pscoast -B20 -W -JC0/0/0.1c -Rd > test.ps
GMT Fatal Error: GMT_lonpath could not allocate memory [17179869168.00 Gb, n_items = -2147483647]

I'm not sure if my use of pscoast is correct, but even so, it looks like a bug. A search for similar problems turned up this:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gis.gmt.user/9025

[Alisdair Tullo (alisdair)]

I uninstalled the Ubuntu package version of GMT, then downloaded and installed the latest version of GMT direct from

http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/gmt/gmt_download.html

using the install_gmt script. The problem occurs just the same:

$ /usr/local/bin/pscoast -B20 -W -JC0/0/0.1c -Rd > test.ps
GMT Fatal Error: GMT_lonpath could not allocate memory [17179869168.00 Gb, n_items = -2147483647]

So, I think the problem lies with the GMT code, not with the Ubuntu package.

[Nat Wilson (njwilson23)]

No one has said anything, and I'm curious about where this stands.

As far as I can guess, it seems to be a problem with placing the map annotations when the Cassini projection covers all latitudes. Logically, the annotations would all need to converge on a single point, which might (?) be where the problem is.

I had no problems running the command without annotations (removing the -B flag) or by changing the -R flag from global coverage to something like -R-180/180/-85/85.

[hamish (hamish-b)]

see also launchpad bug #1349718

[Bas Couwenberg (sebastic)]

This has been fixed in GMT 5, available in wily and later.