Upgrading Groovy to 1.6.2 Fails on Mac

When I tried to upgrade Groovy from 1.6.1 to 1.6.2 using MacPorts, it failed with an OutOfMemoryError. I managed to get it to build using some manual fixing in the build file. I'll explain what I did in this blog.

This was the result that I got:

$ sudo port upgrade groovy
--->  Building groovy
...
Command output:     [javac] Compiling 699 source files to /opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_java_groovy/work/groovy-1.6.2/target/classes
    [javac]
    [javac]
    [javac] The system is out of resources.
    [javac] Consult the following stack trace for details.
    [javac] java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
    ...
    [javac] 	at com.sun.tools.javac.Main.main(Main.java:54)

BUILD FAILED
/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_java_groovy/work/groovy-1.6.2/build.xml:173: Compile failed; see the compiler error output for details.

Looking in the directory mentioned above, we find a build.properties file that contains some settings:

$ cat /opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_java_groovy/work/groovy-1.6.2/build.properties
...
groovycMain_mx = 512m
groovycTest_mx = 1G
groovycExamples_mx = ${groovycMain_mx}

javaDoc_mx = 512m
groovyDoc_mx = 640m

OK, plenty of memory, but nothing seems related to javac compilation. Let's check the line 173, that the error message mentioned:

sudo vi +173 /opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_java_groovy/work/groovy-1.6.2/build.xml

The javac call there does not contain any memory setting, so we must assume that it uses the default heap size:

<javac srcdir="${mainSourceDirectory}" includeantruntime="false" destdir="${mainClassesDirectory}"
       deprecation="on" debug="yes" source="1.5" target="1.5" fork="true" classpathref="compilePath">

However, looking a few lines further down, we find the groovyc call:

<groovyc srcdir="${mainSourceDirectory}" destdir="${mainClassesDirectory}" fork="true" memorymaximumsize="${groovycMain_mx}">

Let's add the same memory setting as the groovyc call uses to the javac call:

<javac srcdir="${mainSourceDirectory}" includeantruntime="false" destdir="${mainClassesDirectory}"
       memorymaximumsize="${groovycMain_mx}" deprecation="on" debug="yes" source="1.5" target="1.5" fork="true" classpathref="compilePath">

Let's try the upgrade again:

$ sudo port upgrade groovy
--->  Building groovy
--->  Staging groovy into destroot
--->  Deactivating groovy @1.6.1_0
--->  Installing groovy @1.6.2_0
--->  Activating groovy @1.6.2_0
--->  Cleaning groovy

Success.

Update: The memory problem seems to be related to Java6. Switching to Java5 makes the build go through, and I've replicated that on two Macs.

Ulrik Sandberg
Consultant at Jayway