CHAP 12 COSC 1010

recursive function

a function that calls itself, usually involves if-else to control number of times it repeats

depth of recursion

the number of times a function
calls itself

problem solve with recursion

powerful tool when solving repetitive problems, can be solved with a loop, less efficient overall

base case

can be solved without recursion (if start index> end index return 0)

recursive case

reduce problem to smaller problem of the
same structure and call the function again to solve the
smaller problem (return current_number + sum(list, start+1, end))

calculate factorial of number with recursion

n=0 is base case, n>0 is recursive case (factorial(n)=n*factorial(n-1))

def factorial(num):, if num == 0:, return 1, else:, return num*factorial(num-1)

direct recursion

when a function directly calls itself

indirect recursion

when function A calls function B,
which in turn calls function A