Question

I’m trying to execute the following code:

PdfReader reader = new PdfReader("/path/to/file.pdf");
int pages = reader.getNumberOfPages();

It works on most files, but on one particular file, it crashes with error:

java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
    at java.util.Arrays.copyOf(Arrays.java:2882)
    at java.lang.AbstractStringBuilder.expandCapacity(AbstractStringBuilder.java:100)
    at java.lang.AbstractStringBuilder.append(AbstractStringBuilder.java:572)
    at java.lang.StringBuffer.append(StringBuffer.java:320)
    at com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PRTokeniser.readString(PRTokeniser.java:158)
    at com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PRTokeniser.getStartxref(PRTokeniser.java:224)
    at com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PRTokeniser.getStartxref(PRTokeniser.java:229)
    ...goes on for a while
    at com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PRTokeniser.getStartxref(PRTokeniser.java:229)

I know that it’s something wrong with the input file. I’m just wondering if there’s a way of knowing before attempting to make the method call, that the file is going to cause a problem.

Answer 1

It turns out it was a bug with the version of itext I am using (5.0.1). I logged a query with the developers, and a fix was put in – that I tested – and which hopefully will find it’s way into the next version (5.0.2)