Recursive Functions

Recursive functions are those which call themselves directly or indirectly. The recursive function consists of the termination condition and the body. We will briefly look at the recursive function and its properties in this lesson.

We'll cover the following

Introduction

The function that calls itself directly or indirectly is known as a recursive function. The recursive method consists of two parts: the termination condition and the body. Both of them are explained below:

Termination condition

One or more terminating conditions are often present in a recursive system. It’s the condition where the function does not call itself.

Body The body of the recursive method contains the core logic of the method. It also includes the recursion expansion argument that invokes the method.

Properties of a recursive algorithm

There are three important properties of a recursive algorithm:

  • A recursive algorithm must have a termination condition.

  • A recursive algorithm must change its state, and shift the state toward the termination condition.

  • A recursive algorithm must be capable of calling itself.

Note: The recursive method can run forever if there is no termination condition, eventually consuming all of the stack memory.

Because of stack overheads, a recursive program runs slower. If an iterative approach (using loops) will achieve the same result as recursion, we can use it instead of recursion to minimize stack overhead.

    Let’s check some examples of recursive functions in the next lesson.

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