Iteration v. Recursion...

Can some explain the difference between the two?

:)

Recursion: a function calling itself
Iteration: a loop such as For, While, etc.

They're two completely different things. Recrusion is when a function calls itself, and iteration is one repetition of a sequence of instructions/events (e.g. in a loop, one iteration is once through the code in the loop)

Thanks

:)

Quote:

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Originally posted by filburt1
Recursion: a function calling itself
Iteration: a loop such as For, While, etc.

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Examples:

Code:

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// recursion:
int stuff(int x)
{
    if (x == 0) return 0;
    else return stuff(x - 1);
}

// iteration
int someValue = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < x, i++)
{
    someValue += i
}

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Both return (except for the billions of bugs I didn't notice :)) the sum from 0 to x.

The recursion example looks like it returns 0 =).

Code:

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stuff(4)            returns 0
return (4-1)    returns 0 ^
return (3-1)    returns 0 ^
return (2-1)    returns 0  ^
return (1-1) -> returns 0  ^

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Z.

[edit]
It does, the code should look like:

Code:

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int stuff(int x)  {
    if(x == 0) return 0;
    else return x + stuff(x-1);
}

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Heh, I told you there'd be bugs. ;) But the basic concept is there. :)

Quite =).

Z.