[tex-live] Texcapacity exceeded

Nelson H. F. Beebe beebe at math.utah.edu
Mon Nov 26 23:43:08 CET 2012


Thanks to Bernhard Kleine <bernhard.kleine at gmx.net> for suggesting
suitable additions to /usr/local/share/texlive/2012/texmf.cnf to
handle large bibliography files:

	main_memory = 5000000
	font_mem_size = 8000000
	hash_extra = 600000
	pool_size = 6250000

In years past, it was recommended that such changes be instead put in
the texmf-local subdirectory so as not to be wiped out by possible
future updates by tlmgr.  Presumably that is still true, but perhaps
tlmgr developers on this list can best advise?

I checked some of our texmf.cnf files, and found that for my own
extensive bibliography work, I had created these settings for the TeX
Live 2010 release (and used since for the 2011 and 2012 releases,
without needing further enlarging):

	max_cites.bibtex                =   20000
	hash_size.bibtex                =   50000
	max_strings.bibtex              = 2048000
	maxstrings.bibtex               = 2048000

I generally try to keep our BibTeX files (now collectively holding
almost 700,000 entries) below 4000 entries per file, although in a few
cases, the entry count now exceeds that.  That limit of 4000 entries
was usually sufficient for the original BibTeX (late 1980s vintage),
but at times, I have hit limits from the sometimes extensive
cross-referencing between entries in some of them.

Here is a current sampling of entry counts:

	% bibsql --server PostgreSQL
	=> select filename, count(year) from bibtab
	->        group by filename
	->        order by count(year) desc, filename;

		  filename           | count 
	-----------------------------+-------
	 applmathcomput2005.bib      |  5753
	 fparith.bib                 |  5632
	 ieeecga.bib                 |  4928
	 bjhs.bib                    |  4395
	 super.bib                   |  4309
	 linux-journal.bib           |  4143
	 amermathmonthly1965.bib     |  4092
	 java.bib                    |  4033
	 canmathbull.bib             |  3986
	 cryptography1990.bib        |  3971
	 lncs.bib                    |  3966
	 linala2000.bib              |  3915
	 jcomputphys2000.bib         |  3866
	...

For large journal-specific bibliographies, I tend to split them into
decade-specific (or occasionally, pentad-specific) files to reduce
the counts to manageable sizes.  Each is successfully typeset by LaTeX
in its entirety before it is released to the Web archives at

	http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/bibnet/
	http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/index-table.html

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- Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
- University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148                  -
- Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu  -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233                       beebe at acm.org  beebe at computer.org -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
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