Exemplary Hadoop Mapper dealing with OutOfMemoryError

ExemplaryMapper.java

/**
 * @author Bohdan Mushkevych
 *         date: 16 Mar 2012
 *         Description: presents OutOfMemoryError recovery in Hadoop
 */
public class ExemplaryMapper extends Mapper<ImmutableBytesWritable, Result, ImmutableBytesWritable, ImmutableBytesWritable> {
    private static Logger log = Logger.getLogger(ExemplaryMapper.class);

    @Override
    protected void map(ImmutableBytesWritable key, Result result, Context context) throws IOException, InterruptedException {
        try {
            // do something very useful here
            // keep all references in try scope of visibility
            byte[] bigArray = new byte[BIG_NUMBER];

        } catch (java.lang.OutOfMemoryError e) {
            System.gc();
            log.warn(String.format("OutOfMemoryError was thrown for user id=%d", Bytes.toInt(key.get())));
            Counter counter = context.getCounter(SynergyCounter.NUMBER_OF_OOM_ERRORS);
            counter.increment(1);
        }
    }
}