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Recursive drawing of a Sierpiński Triangle through turtle graphics. 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 ...
A classic example of recursion is the definition of the factorial function, given here in Python code: def factorial ( n ): if n > 0 : return n * factorial ( n - 1 ) else : return 1 The function calls itself recursively on a smaller version of the input (n - 1) and multiplies the result of the recursive call by n , until reaching the base case ...
A total recursive function is a partial recursive function that is defined for every input. Every primitive recursive function is total recursive, but not all total recursive functions are primitive recursive. The Ackermann function A(m,n) is a well-known example of a total recursive function (in fact, provable total), that is not primitive ...
Anonymous recursion primarily consists of calling "the current function", which results in direct recursion. Anonymous indirect recursion is possible, such as by calling "the caller (the previous function)", or, more rarely, by going further up the call stack , and this can be chained to produce mutual recursion .
In computer science, corecursion is a type of operation that is dual to recursion.Whereas recursion works analytically, starting on data further from a base case and breaking it down into smaller data and repeating until one reaches a base case, corecursion works synthetically, starting from a base case and building it up, iteratively producing data further removed from a base case.
The dispatch semantics of this, namely that method calls on this are dynamically dispatched, is known as open recursion, and means that these methods can be overridden by derived classes or objects. By contrast, direct named recursion or anonymous recursion of a function uses closed recursion , with static dispatch.
Tail recursion (or tail-end recursion) is particularly useful, and is often easy to optimize in implementations. Tail calls can be implemented without adding a new stack frame to the call stack . Most of the frame of the current procedure is no longer needed, and can be replaced by the frame of the tail call, modified as appropriate (similar to ...
This mutually recursive definition can be converted to a singly recursive definition by inlining the definition of a forest: t: v [t[1], ..., t[k]] A tree t consists of a pair of a value v and a list of trees (its children). This definition is more compact, but somewhat messier: a tree consists of a pair of one type and a list another, which ...