Recursion in C Language
àRecursion
is a process by which a function calls itself repeatedly, until some specified
condition has been satisfied.
àThe
process is used for repetitive computations in which each action is stated in
terms of a precious result.
àIn
order to solve a problem recursively, two conditions must be satisfied.
àThe
problem must be written in a recursive form, and the problem statement must
include a stopping condition.
àThe
best example of recursion is calculation of factorial of an integer quantity,
in which the same procedure is repeating itself.
Example:
Write
a C Program to calculate factorial of a given number using recursion.
#include
<stdio.h>
main()
{
int number;
long int fact(int number);
printf(“Enter number”);
scanf(“%d”, & number);
printf(“Factorial of number is % d\n”, fact(number));
}
long int fact(int number)
{
if(number <=1)
return(1);
else
return(number *fact(number-1));
}
The point to be noted here is that the function ‘fact’
calls itself recursively, with an actual argument (n-1) that decrease in value
for each successive call.
The recursive calls terminate the value of the actual
argument becomes equal to 1. When a recursive program is executed, the
recursive function calls are not executed immediately.
