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In computer science, recursion is a method of solving a computational problem where the solution depends on solutions to smaller instances of the same problem. [1] [2] Recursion solves such recursive problems by using functions that call themselves from within their own code. The approach can be applied to many types of problems, and recursion ...
This example is mutual single recursion, and could easily be replaced by iteration. In this example, the mutually recursive calls are tail calls, and tail call optimization would be necessary to execute in constant stack space. In C, this would take O(n) stack space, unless rewritten to use jumps instead of calls. [4]
Recursion in computer programming is exemplified when a function is defined in terms of simpler, often smaller versions of itself. The solution to the problem is then devised by combining the solutions obtained from the simpler versions of the problem. One example application of recursion is in parsers for programming languages. The great ...
A classic example of recursion is computing the factorial, which is defined recursively by 0! := 1 and n! := n × (n - 1)!.. To recursively compute its result on a given input, a recursive function calls (a copy of) itself with a different ("smaller" in some way) input and uses the result of this call to construct its result.
Circular dependencies can cause many unwanted effects in software programs. Most problematic from a software design point of view is the tight coupling of the mutually dependent modules which reduces or makes impossible the separate re-use of a single module.
Folds can be regarded as consistently replacing the structural components of a data structure with functions and values. Lists, for example, are built up in many functional languages from two primitives: any list is either an empty list, commonly called nil ([]), or is constructed by prefixing an element in front of another list, creating what is called a cons node ( Cons(X1,Cons(X2,Cons ...
Data types can also be defined by mutual recursion. The most important basic example of this is a tree, which can be defined mutually recursively in terms of a forest (a list of trees). Symbolically: f: [t[1], ..., t[k]] t: v f A forest f consists of a list of trees, while a tree t consists of a pair of a value v and a forest f (its children ...
Algorithm X is a recursive, nondeterministic, depth-first, backtracking algorithm that finds all solutions to the exact cover problem. Some of the better-known exact cover problems include tiling , the n queens problem , and Sudoku .