I’ve looked everywhere and can’t find a solid answer. According to the documentation, Java throws a java.lang.StackOverflowError error under the following circumstance:
Thrown when a stack overflow occurs because an application recurses too deeply.
But this raises two questions:
- Aren’t there other ways for a stack overflow to occur, not only through recursion?
- Does the StackOverflowError happen before the JVM actually overflows the stack or after?
To elaborate on the second question:
When Java throws the StackOverflowError, can you safely assume that the stack did not write into the heap? If you shrink the size of the stack or heap in a try/catch on a function that throws a stack overflow, can you continue working? Is this documented anywhere?
Answers I am not looking for:
- A StackOverflow happens because of bad recursion.
- A StackOverflow happens when the heap meets the stack.
