java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: bitmap size exceeds VM budget - Android

Question

I developed an application that uses lots of images on Android.

The app runs once, fills the information on the screen (Layouts, Listviews,

Answer 1

FWIW, here's a lightweight bitmap-cache I coded and have used for a few months. It's not all-the-bells-and-whistles, so read the code before you use it.

/**
 * Lightweight cache for Bitmap objects. 
 * 
 * There is no thread-safety built into this class. 
 * 
 * Note: you may wish to create bitmaps using the application-context, rather than the activity-context. 
 * I believe the activity-context has a reference to the Activity object. 
 * So for as long as the bitmap exists, it will have an indirect link to the activity, 
 * and prevent the garbaage collector from disposing the activity object, leading to memory leaks. 
 */
public class BitmapCache { 

    private Hashtable> hashtable = new Hashtable>();  

    private StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); 

    public BitmapCache() { 
    } 

    /**
     * A Bitmap with the given width and height will be returned. 
     * It is removed from the cache. 
     * 
     * An attempt is made to return the correct config, but for unusual configs (as at 30may13) this might not happen.  
     * 
     * Note that thread-safety is the caller's responsibility. 
     */
    public Bitmap get(int width, int height, Bitmap.Config config) { 
        String key = getKey(width, height, config); 
        ArrayList list = getList(key); 
        int listSize = list.size();
        if (listSize>0) { 
            return list.remove(listSize-1); 
        } else { 
            try { 
                return Bitmap.createBitmap(width, height, config);
            } catch (RuntimeException e) { 
                // TODO: Test appendHockeyApp() works. 
                App.appendHockeyApp("BitmapCache has "+hashtable.size()+":"+listSize+" request "+width+"x"+height); 
                throw e ; 
            }
        }
    }

    /**
     * Puts a Bitmap object into the cache. 
     * 
     * Note that thread-safety is the caller's responsibility. 
     */
    public void put(Bitmap bitmap) { 
        if (bitmap==null) return ; 
        String key = getKey(bitmap); 
        ArrayList list = getList(key); 
        list.add(bitmap); 
    }

    private ArrayList getList(String key) {
        ArrayList list = hashtable.get(key);
        if (list==null) { 
            list = new ArrayList(); 
            hashtable.put(key, list); 
        }
        return list;
    } 

    private String getKey(Bitmap bitmap) {
        int width = bitmap.getWidth();
        int height = bitmap.getHeight();
        Config config = bitmap.getConfig();
        return getKey(width, height, config);
    }

    private String getKey(int width, int height, Config config) {
        sb.setLength(0); 
        sb.append(width); 
        sb.append("x"); 
        sb.append(height); 
        sb.append(" "); 
        switch (config) {
        case ALPHA_8:
            sb.append("ALPHA_8"); 
            break;
        case ARGB_4444:
            sb.append("ARGB_4444"); 
            break;
        case ARGB_8888:
            sb.append("ARGB_8888"); 
            break;
        case RGB_565:
            sb.append("RGB_565"); 
            break;
        default:
            sb.append("unknown"); 
            break; 
        }
        return sb.toString();
    }

}