How to cause a stackoverflow Error in java
problem
You wish to see a program example that causes the well-heard StackOverflow error. As we seen in previous blog posts about Exceptions and how to catch them, this one is another one example that happens at times but it’s an Error. Errors are considered more serious than Exceptions. In this post we will see a classic way to make this error happen.
SOLUTION
In Java, we can use recursion to accomplish a mechanism for iteration like for-loop, while-loop, etc. In the code below we have a very simple piece of code that recurs but never stops. The result of such a program? StackOverflow error!
Let’s see the code that follows:
package com.programmerabroad;
public class StackOverflow {
public static void main(String[] args) {
overflowTheProgramStack();
}
public static void overflowTheProgramStack(){
overflowTheProgramStack();
}
}
output
As expected, the StackOverflow Error occurred! The explanations falls into Operating Systems area and how a program runs in the Operating System.
Subscribe to our newsletter
conclusion
In this post we saw how to cause a StackOverflowError in java using infinite recursion. The program stack fills up having as a result to signal this error and crash the program.