mod_perl memory

Hi,

I have a perl script running in mod_perl that needs to write a large amount of data to the client, possibly over a long period. The behavior that I observe is that once I print and flush something, the buffer memory is not reclaimed even though I rflush (I know this cant be reclaimed back by the OS).

Is that how mod_perl operates and is there a way that I can force it to periodically free the buffer memory, so that I can use that for new buffers instead of taking more from the OS?