Can recursion crash java or a java IDE?

Question

I made a little program that finds all prime numbers from 0 - 5000, but the program crashes after about a number of recursions which gives me this error:

at main.LargePrimeNumber.recursion(LargePrimeNumber.java:37)

What is causing this? My first guess is that my RAM fills up and crashes, but that doesn't make too much sense seeing as everything else is still running. My second idea is that my IDE (eclipse neon) has a max limit or that recursion overloads my IDE so it throws errors.

Below is my code

import java.util.ArrayList;

public class LargePrimeNumber {

    static ArrayList<Integer> PrimeDataBase = new ArrayList<Integer>();
    static int cd = 12; //current digit that is being compared to see if it's prime

    public static void main(String[] args){
        PrimeDataBase.add(2);
        PrimeDataBase.add(3);
        PrimeDataBase.add(5);
        PrimeDataBase.add(7);
        PrimeDataBase.add(11);
        recursion(PrimeDataBase.size()-1);
    }

    public static void recursion(int dbsize){

        boolean prime = true;

        for(int i = 0; i<dbsize; i++){
            if(cd % PrimeDataBase.get(i) == 0){
                prime = false;
                break;
            }
        }
        if(cd<4330){ //I can get this to work up to 4330, but no larger
        if (prime == true){
            PrimeDataBase.add(cd);
            System.out.println(cd + " is prime");
            cd++;
            recursion(PrimeDataBase.size()-1);
        }else{
            cd++;
            recursion(PrimeDataBase.size()-1);
        }}
    }
}

Here are the outputs:

13 is prime
17 is prime
19 is prime
23 is prime
29 is prime
31 is prime
37 is prime
41 is prime
43 is prime
47 is prime
53 is prime
59 is prime
...
4271 is prime
4273 is prime
4283 is prime
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.StackOverflowError
    at java.lang.Integer.toString(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.String.valueOf(Unknown Source)
    at main.LargePrimeNumber.recursion(LargePrimeNumber.java:32)
    ... // it gives me like 50 of ^ these errors

That can't ever happen because I set the initial size as 5 by adding 5 prime numbers in the main method. — Kenneth, Mar 16 '18 at 05:58
9 is no longer in there. Thanks, I can't believe I missed that — Kenneth, Mar 16 '18 at 06:02

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 16 '18 at 06:01

0

Recursion makes the call stack increase until methods start returning. If you expect your call stack to be so large, then you can tell java to increase the maximum call stack to your expected number.

For that, you must use the -Xss parameter of your java command.

answered Mar 16 '18 at 06:01

ernest_k

44,416
5
53
99

Can you show me what that looks like? I've haven't played too much with recursion, hence why I was making this program. – Kenneth Mar 16 '18 at 06:03

Petr · Answer 2 · 2018-03-16T06:27:59.947

java.lang.StackOverflowError means that stack of the JVM reached its limit. Reason is the recursion in your code as each nested call of the recursion() method eats some bytes from the stack.

You can increase the size of the stack by the -Xss command line argument of the JVM. E.g. running your code with:

java -cp<your_class_path> -Xss5M LargePrimeNumber

will set the stack size of the JVM to 5MB. See the java tool documentation here.

Another way how to avoid the java.lang.StackOverflowError would be to rewrite your algorithm without the recursion.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 16 '18 at 06:22

0

To avoid the error of stack overflow, instead of recursion logic, try for a iterative approach.

https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/418776/How-to-replace-recursive-functions-using-stack-and

Way to go from recursion to iteration

answered Mar 16 '18 at 06:22

Shashi

129
1
2
9

Can recursion crash java or a java IDE?

3 Answers3