[gedit-list] Too many files error

[Christopher Backhouse <cjbackhouse gmail com>]

I have twice received the following error while editing a large number 
of files in gedit.
"There are too many open files. Please close some applications and try 
again."
I doubt I have exceeded the systemwide file-descriptor limit - 
presumably a lot of things would be complaining.
Is this a bug in gedit? Is it actually leaking file handles? How do I 
find out if some other process is to blame? I have been trying to work 
out how to get a list of processes sorted by number of fd's using lsof 
and some commandline magic.