Examples of Recursive functions [closed]

This illustration is in English, rather than an actual programming language, but is useful for explaining the process in a non-technical way: A child couldn’t sleep, so her mother told a story about a little frog, who couldn’t sleep, so the frog’s mother told a story about a little bear, who couldn’t sleep, so bear’s … Read more

How does the fibonacci recursive function “work”?

You’re defining a function in terms of itself. In general, fibonnaci(n) = fibonnaci(n – 2) + fibonnaci(n – 1). We’re just representing this relationship in code. So, for fibonnaci(7) we can observe: fibonacci(7) is equal to fibonacci(6) + fibonacci(5) fibonacci(6) is equal to fibonacci(5) + fibonacci(4) fibonacci(5) is equal to fibonacci(4) + fibonacci(3) fibonacci(4) is … Read more

I got “scheme application not a procedure” in the last recursive calling of a function

You intend to execute two expressions inside the consequent part of the if, but if only allows one expression in the consequent and one in the alternative. Surrounding both expressions between parenthesis (as you did) won’t work: the resulting expression will be evaluated as a function application of the first expression with the second expression … Read more

Recursion vs loops

I favor recursive solutions when: The implementation of the recursion is much simpler than the iterative solution, usually because it exploits a structural aspect of the problem in a way that the iterative approach cannot I can be reasonably assured that the depth of the recursion will not cause a stack overflow, assuming we’re talking … Read more