Memory leak writing string to file

Using the windows process explorer I can see that memory in my program goes up, then gets collected and drops back down in a constant loop until I uncomment the following function:

Code:

---

protected function marker( output:FileStream, file:File, i:int, j:int ):void
{
        output.open( file, FileMode.APPEND );
        output.writeUTFBytes( i + "\t" + j + "\n" );       
        output.close();                               
}

---

With this function being called, the memory increases unboundedly until it reaches around 2GB and the whole thing crashes with an out of memory error. I was hoping someone could shed some light on where the leak here is and how to fix it, since I would like to be able to call this function reasonably frequently. Thanks. I think it's creating a new String each time but don't know why it's not being collected if this is in fact what's happening.

Quote:

---

APPEND : String = "append"
[static] Used for a file to be opened in write mode, with all written data appended to the end of the file.

---

https://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPl.../FileMode.html
You should make sure what you want to use. Append probably just keeps adding to the file until it gets too big. I figure that the file you try opening ends up being too big.