Why is a StackOverflowError being thrown, when the code is in a try and catch statement?

I am trying to write an API for an interpreter for a language of my own creation, and I have three classes so far:

Here is a snippet from class 'CandleInterpreter' (The main API class):

protected Class<?> inputClass;
protected Class<?> outputClass;
public String input;
protected String currentFile;
public CandleInterpreter(Class<?> inputClass, Class<?> outputClass) {
this.inputClass = inputClass;
this.outputClass = outputClass;
this.input = "";
this.currentFile = "";
}

this class contains this method:

public void output(String message) {
try {
outputClass.getConstructor(String.class).newInstance(message);
} catch (Exception exception) {
output("Output class is invalid.");
System.exit(0);
}
}

Here is a snippet from class 'Output':

public class Output {
public Output(String message) {
System.out.println(message);
}
}

And here is a snippet from class 'Main':

public static void main(String args[]) {
CandleInterpreter interpreter = new CandleInterpreter(Input.class, Output.class);
interpreter.output("Hello World!");
}

This code works fine, but in the main class, when I pass a different class into the 'CandleInterpreter' object, instead of the 'Output.class' class, a 'StackOverflowError' is thrown:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.StackOverflowError
at java.base/java.lang.StringUTF16.compress(StringUTF16.java:158)
at java.base/java.lang.String.<init>(String.java:3002)
at java.base/java.lang.String.<init>(String.java:250)
at java.base/java.util.StringJoiner.toString(StringJoiner.java:187)
at java.base/java.lang.Class.methodToString(Class.java:3374)
at java.base/java.lang.Class.getConstructor0(Class.java:3302)
at java.base/java.lang.Class.getConstructor(Class.java:2110)
at CandleAPI.CandleInterpreter.output(CandleInterpreter.java:107)
at CandleAPI.CandleInterpreter.output(CandleInterpreter.java:109)
at CandleAPI.CandleInterpreter.output(CandleInterpreter.java:109)
at CandleAPI.CandleInterpreter.output(CandleInterpreter.java:109)
at CandleAPI.CandleInterpreter.output(CandleInterpreter.java:109)
at CandleAPI.CandleInterpreter.output(CandleInterpreter.java:109)
at CandleAPI.CandleInterpreter.output(CandleInterpreter.java:109)
at CandleAPI.CandleInterpreter.output(CandleInterpreter.java:109)
at CandleAPI.CandleInterpreter.output(CandleInterpreter.java:109)
at CandleAPI.CandleInterpreter.output(CandleInterpreter.java:109)
at CandleAPI.CandleInterpreter.output(CandleInterpreter.java:109)
...

I am confused why this error is being thrown, as I have the line of code 'outputClass.getConstructor(String.class).newInstance(message);' in a try and catch statement. Can anyone explain? Thanks.

-PrimeCubed

A StackOverflowError is an Error, not an Exception. Catching Exception will not catch a StackOverflowError.

You can catch it - either as StackOverflowError, Error or Throwable - but what do think you can achieve by doing so? Errors are meant to be unrecoverable conditions.

I don't read your code carefully, but StackOverflowError is an error not an exception.

StackOverflowError extends VirtualMachineError
VirtualMachineError extends Error
Error extends Throwable

Show in this case, you can try cat a Throwable instead.
For root cause, you should look at you call stack and figure it out how can it be stack overflow.

The following line is throwing the exception :

     output("Output class is invalid.");

Hence code goes into catch block and tries to execute :

       output("Output class is invalid.");

Instead if you replace your code in catch block to below, it will not get into infinite loop:

        System.out.println("Output class is invalid.);