Do Java arrays have a maximum size?

Question

Is there a limit to the number of elements a Java array can contain? If so, what is it?

Answer 1

Arrays are non-negative integer indexed , so maximum array size you can access would be Integer.MAX_VALUE. The other thing is how big array you can create. It depends on the maximum memory available to your JVM and the content type of the array. Each array element has it's size, example. byte = 1 byte, int = 4 bytes, Object reference = 4 bytes (on a 32 bit system)

So if you have 1 MB memory available on your machine, you could allocate an array of byte[1024 * 1024] or Object[256 * 1024].

Answering your question - You can allocate an array of size (maximum available memory / size of array item).

Summary - Theoretically the maximum size of an array will be Integer.MAX_VALUE. Practically it depends on how much memory your JVM has and how much of that has already been allocated to other objects.

Answer 2

Actually it's java limitation caping it at 2^30-4 being 1073741820. Not 2^31-1. Dunno why but i tested it manually on jdk. 2^30-3 still throwing vm except

Edit: fixed -1 to -4, checked on windows jvm

Answer 3

This is (of course) totally VM-dependent.

Browsing through the source code of OpenJDK 7 and 8 java.util.ArrayList, .Hashtable, .AbstractCollection, .PriorityQueue, and .Vector, you can see this claim being repeated:

/**
 * Some VMs reserve some header words in an array.
 * Attempts to allocate larger arrays may result in
 * OutOfMemoryError: Requested array size exceeds VM limit
 */
private static final int MAX_ARRAY_SIZE = Integer.MAX_VALUE - 8;

which is added by Martin Buchholz (Google) on 2010-05-09; reviewed by Chris Hegarty (Oracle).

So, probably we can say that the maximum "safe" number would be 2 147 483 639 (Integer.MAX_VALUE - 8) and "attempts to allocate larger arrays may result in OutOfMemoryError".

(Yes, Buchholz's standalone claim does not include backing evidence, so this is a calculated appeal to authority. Even within OpenJDK itself, we can see code like return (minCapacity > MAX_ARRAY_SIZE) ? Integer.MAX_VALUE : MAX_ARRAY_SIZE; which shows that MAX_ARRAY_SIZE does not yet have a real use.)

Answer 4

Going by this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Java#Large_arrays:

Java has been criticized for not supporting arrays of more than 2³¹−1 (about 2.1 billion) elements. This is a limitation of the language; the Java Language Specification, Section 10.4, states that:

Arrays must be indexed by int values... An attempt to access an array component with a long index value results in a compile-time error.

Supporting large arrays would also require changes to the JVM. This limitation manifests itself in areas such as collections being limited to 2 billion elements and the inability to memory map files larger than 2 GiB. Java also lacks true multidimensional arrays (contiguously allocated single blocks of memory accessed by a single indirection), which limits performance for scientific and technical computing.

Answer 5

Haven't seen the right answer, even though it's very easy to test.

In a recent HotSpot VM, the correct answer is Integer.MAX_VALUE - 5. Once you go beyond that:

public class Foo {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Object[] array = new Object[Integer.MAX_VALUE - 4];
  }
}

You get:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError:
  Requested array size exceeds VM limit

Answer 6

I tried to create a byte array like this

byte[] bytes = new byte[Integer.MAX_VALUE-x];
System.out.println(bytes.length);

With this run configuration:

-Xms4G -Xmx4G

And java version:

Openjdk version "1.8.0_141"

OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_141-b16)

OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.141-b16, mixed mode)

It only works for x >= 2 which means the maximum size of an array is Integer.MAX_VALUE-2

Values above that give

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Requested array size exceeds VM limit at Main.main(Main.java:6)