From:	"Martin Peach" <martin AT loplop DOT com>
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: Use of recursion
Date:	Sun, 12 Dec 1999 13:42:08 -0500
Organization:	Communications Accessibles Montreal, Quebec Canada
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To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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>When should I use recursion since it can be replaced with looping
>most of the time?

I think that recursion can be dangerous because of the possibility of stack
overflow, which is a weak spot in most computer architectures, in that the
cpu blindly allocates memory to the stack without first checking to see if
it is available (as opposed to allocating memory from a heap, where you can
check to see if it's there before jumping in), in other words, your code
becomes much less robust as it loses most of the protection afforded by the
"protected mode". An architecture that uses a separate memory space for the
stack would be preferable, but that doesn't seem to be in the works, except
for some DSPs, which usually have such tiny stack spaces that you can hardly
call functions, let alone do it recursively.

\/\/\/*= Martin

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