Join the Stack Overflow Community
Stack Overflow is a community of 6.4 million programmers, just like you, helping each other.
Join them; it only takes a minute:
Sign up

so I have this little snake game and I get StackOverflow error which looks like so:

 Exception in thread "main" java.lang.StackOverflowError
at java.awt.Component.setBackground(Component.java:1835)
at javax.swing.JComponent.setBackground(JComponent.java:2733)
at javax.swing.LookAndFeel.installColors(LookAndFeel.java:175)
at javax.swing.LookAndFeel.installColorsAndFont(LookAndFeel.java:211)
at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicPanelUI.installDefaults(BasicPanelUI.java:66)
at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicPanelUI.installUI(BasicPanelUI.java:56)
at javax.swing.JComponent.setUI(JComponent.java:666)
at javax.swing.JPanel.setUI(JPanel.java:153)
at javax.swing.JPanel.updateUI(JPanel.java:126)
at javax.swing.JPanel.<init>(JPanel.java:86)
at javax.swing.JPanel.<init>(JPanel.java:109)
at javax.swing.JPanel.<init>(JPanel.java:117)
at SnakeGame.Animation.<init>(Animation.java:36)
at SnakeGame.Snake.<init>(Snake.java:24)
at SnakeGame.Animation.<init>(Animation.java:38)
at SnakeGame.Snake.<init>(Snake.java:24)

I know there's some infinite recursion going on but I don't get it. It seems like just a constructor. so Here's code for Animation class:

//imports are there
interface Drawable{
public void draw(Graphics g);
}


public class Animation extends JPanel implements ActionListener,   KeyListener{

JFrame frame;
List <Drawable> toDraw;
Snake snake;
Food food;
Timer timer;

public static boolean gameOver = false;
public static int UNIT = 20;
public static int SIZE = 500;


public static void main(String[] args){
   Animation animate = new Animation();
   animate.setUpFrame();
}

Animation(){

    toDraw = new ArrayList<>(); // this is line 38 from exception
    snake = new Snake(SIZE/2,SIZE/2);
    food = new Food();
    toDraw.add(snake);
    toDraw.add(food);
    initTimer();
}

void initTimer(){
    timer = new Timer(200, this);
    timer.setInitialDelay(1000);
    timer.start();
}

void setUpFrame(){
    frame = new JFrame("Snake");
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    frame.setSize(SIZE, SIZE);
    frame.setFocusable(true);
    frame.setVisible(true);
    frame.add(this);
}

void gameRun() {
       //haven't written here anything yet.  
}  

   @Override
public void paintComponent(Graphics g){
    super.paintComponent(g);
    this.setBackground(new Color(70,130,80));

    for(Drawable d : toDraw){
        d.draw(g);
    }  

}

@Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        gameRun();
        repaint();
}


@Override
public void keyTyped(KeyEvent e) {

}

@Override
public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {
    int c = e.getKeyCode();
    switch(c){
        case 'L':
           snake.setDirection('L');
            break;
        case 'R':
            snake.setDirection('R');         
            break;
        case 'U':
            snake.setDirection('U');
            break;
        case 'D':
            snake.setDirection('D');
            break;
    }
}

@Override
public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {

}

}

And here's snake class:

   public class Snake extends Animation implements Drawable {

int x;
int y;
char direction = 'N';

Snake(int x, int y){ //line 24 from exception
    this.x = x;
    this.y = y;
}


void setDirection(char way){
    direction = way;
}
void move(char direction){

    if(x < 0){
      x = SIZE;  
    } 
    else if(x > SIZE){
        x = 0;
    }
    if(y < 0){
        y= SIZE;
    }else if (y > SIZE){
        y = 0;
    }

    switch(direction){
        case 'L':
            x-= UNIT;
            break;
        case 'R':
            x+= UNIT;              
            break;
        case 'U':
            y-= UNIT;    
            break;
        case 'D':
            y+= UNIT;
            break;
    }  
}

@Override
public void draw(Graphics g) {
    g.setColor(new Color(160,2,42));
    g.fill3DRect(x, y, UNIT, UNIT, true);
  }  
}

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

share|improve this question
    
Your inheritance makes no sense, why does Snake extend Animation in the first place anyways? – Andrew Li yesterday
    
@AndrewLi Thanks got it! inheritance is my weak spot. I think I'll just create abstract class for any physical object and extend off of it. – Kyle Butler yesterday

You've got unintended recursion due to your program's inheritance structure:

Your Snake extends Animation which creates a Snake in its constructor which extends Animation which creates a Snake in its constructor which extends Animation which creates a Snake in its constructor which extends Animation which creates a Snake in its constructor which extends Animation which creates a Snake in its constructor ... etc...

Solution: don't have Snake extend Animation. And this also makes logical sense, since your Snake is not acting as a Swing component such as a JPanel, and so shouldn't inherit from JPanel. Rather it's a logical entity that is drawn by the JPanel -- and so you want to use composition here (which you're already doing) and not inheritance (which you're unfortunately doing as well).

share|improve this answer
    
Thank you! I don't know how inheritance works very well since I read about it at the time when I couldn't do anything in java. I need to refresh my knowledge. – Kyle Butler yesterday

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.