Thread: StackOverflowError when using quicksort

When I run the following code on a dataset of 500000 items I get a StackOverflowError. I've increased the JVM's available heap space to 512mb however I still get the same problem, I was wondering if anyone could tell me why?

This is the code i'm using:

package sorting2011;
 
import java.util.Calendar;
 
public class QuickSort implements Sorter{
 
	@Override
	public void sort(Comparable[] items, int cutoff) {
		long startTime = Calendar.getInstance().getTimeInMillis();
 
		quickSort(items, 0, items.length - 1);
 
		long endTime = Calendar.getInstance().getTimeInMillis();
 
		long exeTime = endTime - startTime;
		System.out.println("Sort time: " + exeTime + " milliseconds");
	}
 
	public void quickSort(Comparable array[], int left, int right){
		int i = left;
		int k = right;
 
		if (right - left >= 1){
		  	Comparable pivot = array[left];
		    Comparable tmp;
 
		    while (k > i){
		       	while (array[i].compareTo(pivot) != 1 && i <= right && k > i) //Stack trace says error here
		       		i++;
 
		       	while (array[k].compareTo(pivot) == 1 && k >= left && k >= i)
		       		k--;
 
		       	if (k > i){
		       		tmp = array[i]; 
		            array[i] = array[k];
		            array[k] = tmp;     
		        }
		    }
 
		    tmp = array[left];
		    array[left] = array[k];
		    array[k] = tmp;
 
		    quickSort(array, left, k - 1);      //Stack trace says error here
		    quickSort(array, k + 1, right);    
		 }else{
 
		   	return;
	     }
	}
 
}

I have indicated in the code where the stack trace says the error is coming from.

Thanks in advance.

I've solved this problem, thanks guys. I just had to increase the stack size to 2m and the heap size to 350m.