Subj : Re: Are recursive functions ever needed?
To   : comp.programming
From : Tatu Portin
Date : Sat Oct 01 2005 04:33 pm

Aleya Roe wrote:
>>Are recursive functions ever needed, i.e. cannot you just replace them
>>with iterative clauses?
> 
> Yes, you can always convert recursion to iteration. But it's not always
> worth the effort since all but the simplest examples of recursion
> require you to explicitly use a stack to save the algorithm state that
> would otherwise be saved by making a recursive call. Sometimes the
> algorithm makes things easier and with a lot of creativity you can
> figure out how to avoid the stack, but examples like that are rare.
> 
> 
>>b = func (func (func (a)))
> 
> That's not really recursion though, unless this statement is inside the
> definition of func. You're just calling the function three times.
> That's easy to turn into iteration.
> 


Well, my problem here seems to be lack of good examples where 
recursion is needed. Would anybody provide some?

.