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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 ...
Some programming styles discourage mutual recursion, claiming that it can be confusing to distinguish the conditions which will return an answer from the conditions that would allow the code to run forever without producing an answer. Peter Norvig points to a design pattern which discourages the use entirely, stating: [8]
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 ...
In general programming practice, however, this is considered poor style, and recursion with named functions is suggested instead. Anonymous recursion via explicitly passing functions as arguments is possible in any language that supports functions as arguments, though this is rarely used in practice, as it is longer and less clear than ...
The Y combinator allows recursion to be defined as a set of rewrite rules, [21] without requiring native recursion support in the language. [22] In programming languages that support anonymous functions, fixed-point combinators allow the definition and use of anonymous recursive functions, i.e. without having to bind such functions to identifiers.
An example of a primitive recursive programming language is one that contains basic arithmetic operators (e.g. + and −, or ADD and SUBTRACT), conditionals and comparison (IF-THEN, EQUALS, LESS-THAN), and bounded loops, such as the basic for loop, where there is a known or calculable upper bound to all loops (FOR i FROM 1 TO n, with neither i ...
Computability theory, also known as recursion theory, is a branch of mathematical logic, computer science, and the theory of computation that originated in the 1930s with the study of computable functions and Turing degrees. The field has since expanded to include the study of generalized computability and definability.
This strategy avoids the overhead of recursive calls that do little or no work and may also allow the use of specialized non-recursive algorithms that, for those base cases, are more efficient than explicit recursion. A general procedure for a simple hybrid recursive algorithm is short-circuiting the base case, also known as arm's-length ...