Occasional StackOverflowError in Recursive Calculation

Question

When executing the code pasted below in Eclipse, approximately 1 out of 3 times I encounter the following exception:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.StackOverflowError
    at src.Adder.recursiveSumAllNumbersUpTo(Driver.java:33)
    at src.Adder.recursiveSumAllNumbersUpTo(Driver.java:37)
    ... *(there are 1024 lines in this stack)*

The other 2 times, it spits out the result as intended (the times vary slightly between each run):

Recursive: 467946
Non Recursive: 61282
Difference between recursive and non-recursive: 406664
Sum from recursive add: 19534375
Sum from non-recursive add: 19534375

Why does the exception only happen (seemingly) ~30% of the time?

Here's the code:

public class Driver {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        Adder adder = new Adder();
        int valueToSumTo = 6250;

        long startTime = System.nanoTime();
        int raSum = adder.recursiveAddAllNumbersUpTo(valueToSumTo);
        long endTime = System.nanoTime();
        long raDif = endTime - startTime;
        System.out.println("Recursive: " + (raDif));

        startTime = System.nanoTime();
        int nonRaSum = adder.nonRecursiveAddAllNumbersUpTo(valueToSumTo);
        endTime = System.nanoTime();
        long nonRaDif = endTime - startTime;
        System.out.println("Non Recursive: " + (nonRaDif));

        System.out.println("Difference between recursive and non-recursive: " + (raDif - nonRaDif));
        System.out.println("Sum from recursive add: " + raSum);
        System.out.println("Sum from non-recursive add: " + nonRaSum);
    }
}

class Adder {

    public int recursiveAddAllNumbersUpTo(int i) {

        if (i == 1) {
            return i;
        }

        return i + recursiveAddAllNumbersUpTo(i - 1);
    }

    public int nonRecursiveAddAllNumbersUpTo(int i) {
        int count = 0;
        for(int num = 1; num <= i; num++) {
            count += num;
        }

        return count;
    }   
}

Answer 1

Everytime a recursive method calls itself, everything goes to the stack and algorithm such as yours requires a very deep stack.

To solve your problem, you should increase your Stack Size.

You can do that by calling the JVM with the -Xss parameter.

If you are using Eclipse you can do that by doing the following:

1. Right click your project -> Run as -> Run Configurations;
2. Go to the Arguments tab; At the VM arguments, write: "-Xss4m"

Try a bigger stack if that configuration is not enough.