recursion problem

[Danish Shaukat]

Hi all !
This program calculates the power of a number using recursion.
if i set the initial value of ans(the local variable in the method power)
other than 1 , things get messed up why???
One other thing.
I'm using the following stmt
ans=base1*power(base1,power1-1);
But even if i use
ans*=base1*power(base1,power1-1);
I get same answer.

But i guess the best approach is to simply return the expresion
return base1*power(base1,power1-1);

Thanks in advance
--Danish

public class BasePower
{
private static int base,power,answer;
public static void main(String[] args)
{
base=2;
power=8;
answer=power(base,power);
System.out.println("\n\nBase: "+base+"\nPower: "+power+"\nanswer: "+answer);
}
public static int  power(int base1, int power1)
{
int ans=1;
if(power1!=0)
{
ans=base1*power(base1,power1-1);
//System.out.println("..."+ans);
}

return
ans;
}
}

[ Jess added UBB [code] tags to preserve whitespace ]
[ October 31, 2002: Message edited by: Jessica Sant ]