C# catch a stack overflow exception

Question

I have a recursive call to a method that throws a stack overflow exception. The first call is surrounded by a try catch block but the exception is not caught.

Does

Answer 1

The right way is to fix the overflow, but....

You can give yourself a bigger stack:-

using System.Threading;
Thread T = new Thread(threadDelegate, stackSizeInBytes);
T.Start();

You can use System.Diagnostics.StackTrace FrameCount property to count the frames you've used and throw your own exception when a frame limit is reached.

Or, you can calculate the size of the stack remaining and throw your own exception when it falls below a threshold:-

class Program
{
    static int n;
    static int topOfStack;
    const int stackSize = 1000000; // Default?

    // The func is 76 bytes, but we need space to unwind the exception.
    const int spaceRequired = 18*1024; 

    unsafe static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        int var;
        topOfStack = (int)&var;

        n=0;
        recurse();
    }

    unsafe static void recurse()
    {
        int remaining;
        remaining = stackSize - (topOfStack - (int)&remaining);
        if (remaining < spaceRequired)
            throw new Exception("Cheese");
        n++;
        recurse();
    }
}

Just catch the Cheese. ;)