Qa dd'rouy Again

[Umair Uddin]

please give me the simplest example of Recursion ... with basic definition of process(recursion) i am so confused about it .....
Waiting for response
Umair Uddin Qa dd'rouy

[Michael Ernest]

A recursive method is simply one that calls itself. The simplest kind of recursion goes like this:

public class Loop
{
   public void recurse() {
      recurse();
   }
}

That's basically an infinite loop, although it leads to a side effect known as being "out of memory." You'll run out of memory because each time recurse() is called, the currently calling method has to be stored while it waits for the now-called recurse() to do its thing. Since there's no reason for recurse() to ever quit calling itself, it's just a matter of time before you blow up.
To avoid this, a recursive method specifies a condition that allows each called method to return to its calling method, until they're all resolved. For example:

public class AnotherTest
{
   private int stop = 1000;
   public void recurse() {
      stop--;
      System.out.println("stop's current value is: " + stop);
      if (stop = 0 ) {
         return;
      }
      System.out.println("Calling recurse() with a value of " + stop);      
      recurse();
   }
}

This can be a bit of a mind-bender if you don't know how a process tracks the instructions that it runs, so just let it soak for a while.
------------------
Michael Ernest, co-author of: The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide

[greg philpott]

here is another example that shows how it can be usefull:

public class SimpleRecursion{
public static void main(String [] args){
System.out.println( "4! = " + factorial(4) );
}
static int factorial(int n) {
if (n <= 0)
return 1;
else
return n * factorial(n - 1);
}
}