Out of memory when encoding file to base64

Question

Using Base64 from Apache commons

public byte[] encode(File file) throws FileNotFoundException, IOException {
        byte[] encoded;
        try (FileInputSt         


        

Answer 1

Either the file is too big, or your heap is too small, or you've got a memory leak.

• If this only happens with really big files, put something into your code to check the file size and reject files that are unreasonably big.

• If this happens with small files, increase your heap size by using the -Xmx command line option when you launch the JVM. (If this is in a web container or some other framework, check the documentation on how to do it.)

• If the file recurs, especially with small files, the chances are that you've got a memory leak.

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The other point that should be made is that your current approach entails holding two complete copies of the file in memory. You should be able to reduce the memory usage, though you'll typically need a stream-based Base64 encoder to do this. (It depends on which flavor of the base64 encoding you are using ...)

This page describes a stream-based Base64 encoder / decoder library, and includes lnks to some alternatives.