how to get out of recursive methods?

[quipy]

okay:

public int foo() {

bar();

return something;

}

public void bar(){

bar();

...some base case to end the recursive method...

}

is there any way to end bar() (and all recursive bar()s that were called) without reaching the base case, and get back to foo()?

[CornedBee]

Use return values. Let bar return a boolean and only execute base if bar returns true.

[Dillinger4]

Unreachable statement.

public class X{
   public static void main(String[] args){
     foo();
 }

 public static void foo() {
    bar();
 }

 public static void bar(){

 return;

 bar(); // unreachable statement
   
 }
}

[Dillinger4]

I can't see anyway that you could stop recursive call to bar() and get back to foo without using return values and reaching a case. If you exit the JVM before the call to bar then you will never get back to foo so that's not an option. Obviously you can't place return as the first statement in the method bar() since any statements that come after return will be unreachable. You would need to use return values.

public class C{
   public static void main(String[] args){

  foo();
 }

 public static void foo() {
    bar(true);
 }

 public static void bar(boolean b){

  if(b){
   System.out.println("1");   
  }else{
    bar(true); // never invoked
  }
 }
}

[CornedBee]

Let me adapt it to what I said.

public class C{
   public static void main(String[] args){

  foo();
 }

 public static void foo() {
    bar(true);
 }

 public static void bar(boolean b){
  if(b)
    System.out.println("1");
  else
    return bar(b);
}

[Dillinger4]

Problem is he dosen't want to reach a case. I think any case if i understand him correctly.

[Dillinger4]

If false was passed to bar() to make recursive calls wouldn't bar() have to have a boolean return type?

Posted by CornedBee

public class C{
   public static void main(String[] args){

  foo();
 }

 public static void foo() {
    bar(true); // pass false instead
 }

 public static void bar(boolean b){
  if(b)
    System.out.println("1");
  else
    return bar(b);
}

[CornedBee]

Err, yeah, sorry, forgot to change that.

[quipy]

thanks for the feedback ya'll. i tried using the boolean and it works. i sorta get the method to return "false" if something goes wrong, and when this returns to the method that called it, it will in turn check the result. so, a cascading effect of false returns will make its way back up because only when a method returns a true can things continue. or somethin like that

[CornedBee]

Perfect

[Dillinger4]

Fantastic.