Out of memory error in ant

Question

I am trying to run ant task, however I get the following error:

[javadoc] javadoc: error - java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Please increase memory.
[javadoc] For example, on the Sun Classic or HotSpot VMs, add the option -J-Xmx
[javadoc] such as -J-Xmx32m.
[javadoc] 1 error
[javadoc] 103 warnings

I have tried googling to find out how I can set this value, but I cannot find it. I have tried

<javadoc maxmemory="256m">

I have tried

export ANT_OPTS=-Xmx256m

but I still get the same exception. I have tried to increase the value to 1024m witouth any success

Update

I solved it. It had nothing to do with little memory. It was an endeless loop in my javadoc generation.

Solution 1

I solved it.

It had nothing to do with little memory. It was an endeless loop in my javadoc generation.

The correct way of setting more memory for ant is by using export ANT_OPTS=-Xmx256m on *nix.

On Windows follow the usual steps for setting environment variables.

Solution 2

The javac ant task has the attribute memoryMaximumSize which you should set to the same value as you would for -Xmx.

<javac memoryMaximumSize="256m" ...>
  ...
</javac>

I should add that this assumes that it is indeed a javac task that's causing the memory overrun.

Comments

[Mike Yockey]

Was it the same behavior because the amount of memory didn't change where you needed it or did you not allocate enough memory? Bear in mind too that changing the max memory size can affect the sizes of the heap and the stack differently. Increasing the amount of memory may actually result in a smaller stack or heap in some instances. Some experimentation will be necessary.

[Shakti Malik]

Hi How did you find out that there is endless loop ?. I am facing similar issue while dexing the classes.

[Shervin Asgari]

There was an endlees loop in the code we had where we where generating javadoc.

[user5403501]

The above option must be combined with fork="true" to work. This will run javac in a separate process with its own heap size settings. This will also limit any memory leaks in javac implementation to its own child process, without affecting the parent Ant process.

[Patrice M.]

Can you please elaborate ? The loop was between javadoc references ? If so, how can you get more info about the loop itself, how can one trace that loop ?

[Shervin Asgari]

The loop was in our code that generated the javadoc