Educator

Recursion

• Recursion: Is a method of repeating a task without using a looping statement, which is accomplished with a call to the function itself with a value different than the one used before.

• Advantages: Short , Simple to implement, Elegant solutions using divide & conquer algorithms

• Disadvantages: Recursion requires more memory, More processor power, More Time, Sometimes more complex algorithms are required

• Recursive functions: Require 2 steps; base case and recursive step.

• Example: To implement N! in Java using recursion:

	public int factorial(int n) {
	    if (n == 0) 
	    return 1; 
	else 
	    return n * factorial(n - 1);    //tail recursion
	}