By default, SWI-Prolog's combined stacks per thread are limited to 1Gb. This limit is enough for most programs, while it ensures that broken programs often terminate gently on a resource exception rather than consuming all available memory on your system. This page gives some tricks on reducing stack usage in case you run out and explains how the limit may be raised.

Note The 1Gb limit holds for the 9.3.x development series as well as all 64-bit editions. Older 32-bit editions have a stack limit of 128Mb per stack and a combined limit that may be used to restrict stack usage. Even older versions had per-stack limits.

But, my program runs out of stack. What now?

Prune choicepoints. Deterministic programs use way less memory on all the stacks. There are several ways to find unwanted choicepoints.

• While writing the program, you may wish to use the det/1 directive to tell the system that a predicate must succeed and leave no choicepoint.
• Using SSU (Single Sided Unification), makes it easier to write safe functional code.
• Use the SWI-Prolog source-level debugger to find choicepoints.
• If a (test) query on the toplevel prompts for alternatives, there is a choicepoint. The system will tell where by hitting *.

But I really have a lot of choicepoints and data

There are two options for enlarging the stacks. One is from the commandline, using e.g., the command below. The value is in bytes, unless followed by one of k, m or g for Kbytes, Mbytes or Gbytes.

swipl --stack-limit=2g ...

The limit may also be enlarged at runtime using e.g., the call below. The value is in bytes. The Prolog flag may be changed at any time. Setting it too low may result in a stack overflow.

?- set_prolog_flag(stack_limit, 2_000_000_000).

New threads (see thread_create/3) by default inherit the stack limit from the thread that creates it. Alternatively, the option stack_limit(Bytes) may be used.