Java File Size

Question

Is there a limit on the filesize for .java files? I am trying to compile a class that contains a 3 dimensional array of double with around 4000 rows. The code is as follows:
public class SierData2{
  public double[][][] pointData= {
    {{-0.577350, -0.577350,  0.577350},
     ----and so on till end of the array having 4095 values.On compiling, I get an error that "code too large"!!
Any ideas on why I am getting this error?

Answer 1

Hi there,
the Class file format document in section 4.8.1 sais:
The value of the code_length item must be less than 65536.
So one method "body" should only as long as 65535 bytes. I mean the byte code.
We have just faced to this problem, as earlier compilers does not take this constraint into account. We've also got a resource class with a huge static final Object[][]. The generated static initializator method (<clinit>) has a length of 70161 bytes. The new javac with 1.4 jdk does not allow us to recompile this class. :-( We have to separate it to two arrays, in two static mehtods, and then in the static {} block, we put the two arrays into one big array.
Regards,
Vazul