According to this article, Each array element consumes a minimum of 24 bytes.

Your 4.5 Gigs of memory will accommodate a maximum of 185,834 elements.

How does this compare with the record count in your file ?

More relevant is the question - WHY do you need to read the entire file into memory?

Typical/efficient parsing handles the file one line at a time.

IF it is necessary to store the file in memory, would it suffice to store the file in a scalar ? (You could do that by setting $/=undef; prior to reading the file).

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In reply to Re: memory use array vs ref to array by NetWallah
in thread memory use array vs ref to array by dkhosla1

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