What is the maximum depth of the java call stack?

How deep do I need to go into the call stack before I get a StackOverflowError? Is the answer platform dependent?

It depends on the amount of virtual memory allocated to the stack.

http://www.odi.ch/weblog/posting.php?posting=411

You can tune this with the -Xss VM parameter or with the Thread(ThreadGroup, Runnable, String, long) constructor.

I tested on my system and didn't find any constant value, sometimes stack overflow occurs after 8900 calls, sometimes only after 7700, random numbers.

public class MainClass {

    private static long depth=0L;

    public static void main(String[] args){
        deep(); 
    }

    private static void deep(){
        System.err.println(++depth);
        deep();
    }

}