memory issue with runtime.getruntime.exec

Question

can somebody suggest an alternative to Runtime.getRuntime().exec function of java. I am passing a unix command as an argument to this function but it causes a memory issue. Runtime.getRuntime().exec forks a new process with exactly the same amount of memory as being occupied by java process, causing the memory requirement to double which is exactly what I don't want.

Answer 1

This is optional and depends on the operating system. On Linux, the memory is "lazyly" allocated, until really needed. The keywords you look for are "memory overcommit", which is a situation that can arise here.

Read "How does fork handle memory" , or this to learn more. You probably have disabled the overcommit behaviour, so your forked process always allocates all memory immediately.