I have a Java application that parses a large xml schema (.xsd) using Xerces that runs fine on Linux and Windows but gives a StackOverflowError on Solaris, with exactly the same inputs and configuration. I know that Xerces uses recursion to validate xml schemas but since it didn't give any problems on Windows and Linux I was pretty confident that it run everywhere.
Why does this happen? Is there a workaround?
Note that Hotspot VM parameter defaults may be different for different architectures. I would determine the defaults under Windows/Linux, and try setting those for Solaris.
For example:
-XX:ThreadStackSize=512 - Thread Stack Size (in Kbytes). (0 means use default stack size) [Sparc: 512; Solaris x86: 320 (was 256 prior in 5.0 and earlier); Sparc 64 bit: 1024; Linux amd64: 1024 (was 0 in 5.0 and earlier); all others 0.]
(I'm not suggesting this particular parameter is the problem. Merely highlighting its differences under different OSes)
Quote from javadoc:
StackOverflowError:
Thrown when a stack overflow occurs because an application recurses too deeply.
How big a stack is, created for each method, is implementation dependent. That's the reason.
This is likely because the default maximum stack size differs between platforms.
You can specify the stack size using the -Xss command line to the JVM, e.g.
java -Xss256k
For a 256k stack. This is allocated on a per-thread basis.
According to this page, the default stack size depends on the OS.
Sparc: 512
Solaris x86: 320 (was 256 prior in 5.0 and earlier) (update: According to this page, the size of the main thread stack comes from the ulimit. The main thread stack is artificially reduced by the vm to the -Xss value)
Sparc 64 bit: 1024
Linux amd64: 1024 (was 0 in 5.0 and earlier) (update: The default size comes from ulimit, but I can be reduced with -Xss)
Windows: 256 (also here)
You can change the default setting with the -Xss flag. For example:
java ... -Xss1024k ... <classname>
would set the default stack size to 1Mb.