I'm getting a PHP memory allocation error. How do I increase the memory limit of PHP in my configuration?

See http://drupal.org/node/29268 .

The appendix below indicates the php.ini settings and where/how they can be overridden. Some can be overridden in the .htaccess file or some settings can be set in other ways (php.ini, httpd.conf or .htaccess, etc.). Most shared hosts do not allow individuals to make changes to php.ini or httpd.conf files.

That being said however, the PHP execution limit can be overridden in the .htaccess file, which is located at the root of your CiviCRM site. I modified mine to the following and it worked and thus, my large imports worked.

php_value magic_quotes_gpc 0
php_value max_execution_time 360
php_value register_globals 0
php_value session.auto_start 0

http://us3.php.net/manual/en/ini.php#ini.list

PHP_INI_USER 1 Entry can be set in user scripts or in Windows registry
PHP_INI_PERDIR 2 Entry can be set in php.ini, .htaccess or httpd.conf
PHP_INI_SYSTEM 4 Entry can be set in php.ini or httpd.conf
PHP_INI_ALL 7 Entry can be set anywhere

More information: http://us3.php.net/manual/en/ini.php#ini.list .

(From S. Gonzales on crm-dev mailing list)