Recursion Flashcards

Flashcards covering key vocabulary from the Recursion lecture.

Recursion

The definition of an operation in terms of itself; a method that calls itself.

Recursive Programming

Writing methods that call themselves to solve problems recursively; an equally powerful substitute for iteration (loops).

Base Case

The condition to stop the recursive calls; when met, the function stops calling itself and starts returning values.

Recursive Case

Smaller occurrences of the same problem; the method calls itself with modified arguments to make progress towards the base case.

Merge Sort

Repeatedly divides the data in half, sorts each half, and combines the sorted halves into a sorted whole; an example of a divide and conquer algorithm, often implemented recursively.

Binary Search

A search algorithm that repeatedly divides a sorted list in half to find a target value