Recursion

Some notes about recursion.

Most Importantly

The most important thing when writing a recursive function is to have a solid base case. AKA, have a solid case for when you EXIT recursion.

package main

import "fmt"

func foo(n int) int {
  if n == 1 {
    return 1
  }

  return n + foo(n - 1)
}

func main() {
  fmt.Println(foo(5))
}

It is ABUNDANTLY clear here when we stop recursion, when n == 1.

Stages of recursion

There are three stages.

1. Pre - before recursion has begun
2. Recurse
3. Post - when the base case has been met, and we start returning up the call stack