On Aug 6, 2007, at 1:55 PM, Ari Brown wrote:

> Well, no, I don't have to, but it would be really nice to be able  
> to have a bunch of free memory so my computer doesn't stall during  
> another program.  Is there an alternative to soaking up the RAM and  
> then releasing it?

check out /dev/shm or mmap.  to allocate a big string just use

huge = 0.chr * (2 ** 32)

regards.

a @ http://drawohara.com/
--
we can deny everything, except that we have the possibility of being  
better. simply reflect on that.
h.h. the 14th dalai lama