OpenEuphoria

Re: How can I STOP a cursed recursion?

• Posted by Al Getz <Xaxo at aol.com> Jun 20, 2006
• 533 views

Hi there Dan,


As others have mentioned, all you need to do is have a 'test' within
your procedure to make sure there is a true exit at some point in
the execution...i think this will illustrate:


constant Data={1,2,3,4,5,0}
integer k

k=0
procedure Help()
  k+=1
  if Data[k]=0 then
    ?k
    return
  else
    Help()
  end if
end procedure
Help()


The main idea is that the procedure checks some aspect of the data
it's working on and makes a decision to either return or call another
Help().  This of course means that that particular aspect of the data
must be changing while in the procedure so that the procedure can
make an intelligent decision on it's own, without outside help.
The following routine would NOT work because it's data never changes:

constant Data={1,2,3,4,5,0}
integer k

k=1
procedure Help()
  if Data[k]!=0 then
    Help()
  else
    return
  end if
end procedure
Help()


Just a guess, but your routine may want to test to see if
the next piece of data is a sequence or an atom, and take
the appropriate actions.

BTW, it's true that after a number of recurcive calls the code
will 'unravel' by executing a whole bunch of 'return' statements,
or perhaps just 'end procedure' a whole bunch of times,
but only if it's designed right in the first place 



Take care,
Al

And, good luck with your Euphoria programming!

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