getting memory info from system

[Chris Hedemark]

Howdy,

I'm tearing through my O'Reilly books and the CPAN search trying to find a
module or built-in function call that will let me get statistics back from
the system regarding memory.  I'm trying to find:

1) real memory bytes total
2) real memory bytes used
3) real memory bytes free

As a secondary interest I'd like to do the same stats but for the swap
file(s).

Can anyone here point me in the right direction please?

Thanks.

Chris Hedemark - Hillsborough, NC
http://yonderway.com