Just for the record David, I did it both ways. Running a prg from inside the IDE, and as an exe. I got the same results both ways. I should also point out that the help file is wrong. It says 'returns numeric', but in fact, it's a char. Try ? Vartype(sys(1104)).

Alan

>Agnes,
>
>As Alan posted yeserday it is not an issue in runtime. If there was a constant creep of the value in the IDE over a long period of time then it might indicate a leak in the IDE. What Fabio has posted gives no indication of any such problem.
>
>>memory that can not purged is not insignificant.
>>If an app runs for long times the problem can accumulate.