out of processes in oraperl!

I've got an oraperl program (on 7.0.15) that is blowing up with the message:

   /oracle7/bin/oracle - execve: No more processes

This is a 1000 line oraperl program, but basically it looks like this:

1. open several cursors
2. LOOP 1 - read data to be loaded into tables from STDIN
3. do ora_bind on 'main' table
4. LOOP 2 - cycle through multiple records in data
5. do ora_bind on several detail tables from data in arrays
6. end LOOP2
7. do ora_commit
8. end LOOP1
9. close cursors

Although processes are being forked off (and apparently exiting properly) at the rate of 100 or so per minute, at no time does ps show more than about 80 total active processes, and only a dozen or so are involved running Oracle or the oraperl script. Swap space (as reported by sar) is declining continuously, but is still only about 50% gone when oraperl dies.

So, why is it running out processes?

---
Michael Nolan, Sysop for the DBMS RoundTable on GEnie
nolan_at_notes.tssi.com, dbms_at_genie.geis.com
(posted from nolan_at_helios.unl.edu)