Recursion

Definitions

1. The act of recurring.
   countable, uncountable
2. The act of defining an object (usually a function) in terms of that object itself.
   countable, uncountable
3. The invocation of a procedure from within itself.
   countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“The inhabitants predicate the recursion of these storms by numerous other signs, and are prompt to take⟳ every precaution to avoid⟳ their effects.”

“n! = n × (n − 1)! (for n > 0) or 1 (for n = 0) defines the factorial function using recursion.”

“However, we have⟳ still not achieved our goal of devising a finite set⟳ of rules which will generate⟳ an infinite set⟳ of sentence structures. In order⟳ to achieve⟳ this goal, we need⟳ to allow⟳ for the fact that natural languages typically have⟳ the property that they allow⟳ potentially infinite recursion of particular structures.”

“This function uses recursion to compute factorials.”

“When an algorithm makes two recursive calls, we say⟳ that it uses binary recursion.”

CEFR level