Re: Is this recursion?

Marion wrote:
The recursive step is the "reversal(aWord,position-1)" call.

The base case is position equal to 0, which is handled differently from
non-zero. Specifically, the recursive step is not done in the base case.

They have the correct relation to each other, if position is initially
non-negative. The recursive step then uses a function of position,
position-1, that ensures that it must reach the base case, position==0.

Incidentally, you should look at your handling for empty strings.

Patricia

Thanks Patricia and Gordon,

I thought my base case was there but U wasn't confident about my reasoning until you two explained it a bit to me.

Patricia, I learned from Gordon in another program that strings were compared using ".equal" and not "==". I'm afraid I will never forget this even after I am 101 years old . . . with senility. It's been burned into my brain, permanently. :p)

True, but I don't see the relevance, because there were no string
compares in your code.

In the simplified example code I provided, the empty string does not exist since the program initialized before calling the recursive method. I understand that calling a recursive method when a negative number condition exists is not a happy event. In my current code that is not shown here, I do check for the empty string condition before proceeding.

Calling a recursive method with negative input does not have to be a
problem. The key condition is that the recursion process should always
reach a base case in a finite number of steps, when starting from any
permitted input.

Patricia
.

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