diff -r b93ac0586e4b liboctave/dir-ops.cc
--- a/liboctave/dir-ops.cc	Mon Nov 17 11:38:39 2008 +0100
+++ b/liboctave/dir-ops.cc	Mon Nov 17 18:25:21 2008 -0500
@@ -69,9 +69,7 @@
 string_vector
 dir_entry::read (void)
 {
-  static octave_idx_type grow_size = 100;
-
-  octave_idx_type len = 0;
+  octave_idx_type len = 100;
 
   string_vector dirlist;
 
@@ -87,7 +85,7 @@
 	    {
 	      if (count >= len)
 		{
-		  len += grow_size;
+		  len *= 2;
 		  dirlist.resize (len);
 		}