[Therion] Limit in the number of scraps in a (big) project ?

[James Begley]

Hiya,

Line 218 of the Therion TODO.S file (see
https://github.com/therion/therion/blob/master/TODO.S) says:

+ add support for multiple metapost files (more than 4096 scraps)

So there was a known limit of 4,096 scraps at some point. Note that the
TODO.S file hasn't been updated for many years, so that limitation might
have been addressed at some point.

Cheers,
James

On Wed, 8 Oct 2025 at 14:39, Benedikt Hallinger via Therion <
therion at speleo.sk> wrote:

> Good questionQ
> in the hirlatz project, we "just" reach: "[3106]".
>
>
> Am 2025-10-08 15:23, schrieb Xavier Robert via Therion:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I am maintaining a quite big structured Therion database with more
> > than 700 caves
> > (https://github.com/robertxa/Topographies-Samoens_Folly). I am using
> > Therion 6.3.3 (2025-01-06), TeX Live 2015 (MetaPost 1.999).
> > Following a new session of exploration and surveys, I added some
> > scraps in this database. I have no problem to run any compilation of
> > separate caves.
> >
> > But since my last update, when I try to run a Therion compilation for
> > the whole database to build the 3D view of the system
> > (
> https://groupe-speleo-vulcain.com/wp-content/themes/custom_theme/3d/JB.html
> ),
> > I get an error during the « Preloading the plain mem file » :
> >
> > [...]
> > [4090] [4091] [4092] [4093] [4094] [4095]
> > ! Number is too large (4096).
> > l.296920 beginfig(4096
> >                       );
> > [4096]
> > ! Number is too large (4097).
> > l.296923 beginfig(4097
> >                       );
> > [4097]
> > … and so on…
> >
> > therion: error -- metapost exit code -- 512
> >
> > I a m not sure, but I think that I have a total of 4102 objects (this
> > is the last number with a similar error ; with a total of 4117 files
> > written in thTMPDIR/).
> > If I run Therion with the -d option, I see all the data.xxxx from 1 to
> > 4102 in thTMPDIR/. The compressed log file is in attachement.
> >
> > I tried to recompile my database after commenting a small part of the
> > database that I did not change recently. The compilation run well.
> >
> > So, I suspect that there is a limit in the number of objects (scraps
> > ?) Therion (or mpost ?) can handle. Am I right ?
> >
> > Is there a way to get rid off this limitation ?
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Xavier
> > _______________________________________________
> > Therion mailing list
> > Therion at speleo.sk
> > https://mailman.speleo.sk/listinfo/therion
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