Just a couple quick notes as I'm running out the door.

Under Linux at least there could be a 2 Gig file limit in the OS or system libraries.

Check how much RAM your process is allowed to use. In bash run "ulimit -a" to see what your limits are. You have to be root to raise limits and the limts are inherited by child processes. Oh and the details should be in the "bash" man page.

Also depending on how you're dealing with the file (eg reading it all into an array) then the actual system may be running out of RAM and/or swap space.

Good luck. - chad