Thread: Is there anyway to optimise this recursive algorithm so I don't get an OutOfMemory error?

My overall project is to create a tree and use Huffman coding to encode and decode a given file. I am at the point where I need to decode my file. To do this, i am having to step through my Huffman Tree until I reach a bottom most leaf and then return the Byte represented by that leaf. I traverse the tree according to the bit string given to the method. AKA if the current bit is 1, I go to childOne in the tree and so forth. The problem is that I keep getting an outOfMemory error. Is there any way to optimize this code so that it won't use as much memory?

public static int decode(List<Integer> bitArray, HuffmanNode root, int startingPosition,
                          ArrayList<Byte> finalArray)
    {
    HuffmanNode childOne;
    HuffmanNode childZero;
    int currentBit = bitArray.get(startPosition);
    byte newByte;
 
            childOne = root.getChildOne();
            childZero = root.getChildZero();
            if(childOne == null && childZero == null)
            {
               finalArray.add(root.getByteRepresented()); 
               return startPosition;
            } 
            else if(currentBit == 1)
            {
                startPosition++;
                startPosition = decode(bitArray,childOne,startPosition,finalArray);
            }
            else
            {
                startPosition++;
                startPosition = decode(bitArray,childZero,startPosition,finalArray);
            }
 
         return startPosition;
 
}

I am needing to know the place in the bitArray that it ended as well as put the specified Byte into an array, so that is why I am putting the Byte into the array within the method and returning and int. Basically, is there any better way to get this done?