Question

I am trying to read in a large text file (~2.5 MB) into my Android application, using the following code:

private static String readFile(String path) throws IOException {
  FileInputStream stream = new FileInputStream(new File(path));
  try {
      FileChannel fc = stream.getChannel();
      MappedByteBuffer bb = fc.map(FileChannel.MapMode.READ_ONLY, 0, fc.size());
      /* Instead of using default, pass in a decoder. */
      return Charset.defaultCharset().decode(bb).toString();
  }
  finally {
    stream.close();
  }
}

I read here that this is the most effective way to read a file in java, but my app crashes with a force close, I believe because of an out of memory problem, as I have this code wrapped around a try-catch block.

How can I read this in and not make the app crash? I have tried several things, all result in the same, but only for large files. I cannot split the file up, that will not be acceptable in the final application.

---

UPDATE:

Here is the section where I actually read the file:

try                 
{
    String str = readFile(filePath);
    et.setText(str);
    et.setSelection(str.length());
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    et.setText("There was an error reading the file: " + filePath + "\nDetails: " + ex);
}

Where et is an AutoCompleteTextView

---

UPDATE 2:

I have run adb and found the following:

04-11 15:26:16.805 20646 20658 W ActivityManager: Activity pause timeout for HistoryRecord{45b37620 com.ultimatecomputerservicesinc.androidhelloworld/.HelloWorld}
04-11 15:26:17.032 20727 20727 D dalvikvm: GC_EXTERNAL_ALLOC freed 1202 objects / 51792 bytes in 66ms
-- snip --
04-11 15:26:20.868 20727 20727 D dalvikvm: GC_EXTERNAL_ALLOC freed 639 objects / 25048 bytes in 38ms
04-11 15:26:20.961 25842 25842 I Process : Sending signal. PID: 25842 SIG: 9
04-11 15:26:21.102 20727 20727 D dalvikvm: GC_EXTERNAL_ALLOC freed 626 objects / 24328 bytes in 93ms
04-11 15:26:21.141 20646 20650 I ActivityManager: Process com.ultimatecomputerservicesinc.androidhelloworld (pid 25842) has died.

What does signal 9 mean?

---

UPDATE 3

My suspicions are correct, I ran out of memory! How can I increase the JVM size on android?

04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime: java.lang.OutOfMemoryError
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.text.PackedIntVector.growBuffer(PackedIntVector.java:257)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.text.PackedIntVector.insertAt(PackedIntVector.java:187)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.text.DynamicLayout.reflow(DynamicLayout.java:336)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.text.DynamicLayout.<init>(DynamicLayout.java:150)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.widget.TextView.makeNewLayout(TextView.java:4987)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.widget.TextView.checkForRelayout(TextView.java:5484)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.widget.TextView.setText(TextView.java:2776)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.widget.TextView.setText(TextView.java:2644)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.widget.EditText.setText(EditText.java:75)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.widget.TextView.setText(TextView.java:2619)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at com.ultimatecomputerservicesinc.androidhelloworld.HelloWorld$1$1.run(HelloWorld.java:183)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:587)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:92)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:143)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4701)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:868)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:626)
04-12 20:41:48.905  6610  6610 E AndroidRuntime:    at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

Answer 1

Please do print the exception details in the log and post the results. Do something like this:

catch( Exception err) {

    Log.e("There was an error reading the file", err);
}

This should give you some more meaningful message explaining what happened and also a trace of the methods that were being executed.

Then, we might help you further.

I’ve had out of memory exceptions when I parsed 2.5 MB files with a DOM parser… but I don’t think you do it so this could be another problem. Anyway, I solved my problem by splitting the data into several files and parsing them one at a time. ~1MB was a “safe” size for the files.