What is recursion in javascript

Aug,11th,2022

Recursion is a programming pattern that helps in situations where a task can be naturally split into several tasks of the same kind, but simpler. Or when a task can be simplified into an easy action and a simpler variant of the same task.

A recursive function always has a condition to stop calling itself, otherwise, it will call itself indefinitely. So a recursive function typically looks like the following:

🔗Syntax

jsx
function recurse() {
  if (condition) {
    // stop calling itself
    //...
  } else {
    recurse();
  }
}

🔗Example

Let's learn recursion with a one simple example for better understanding

The example i’m going to use is factorial
So first let’s see what is factorial this is not a part of recursion We are going to just understand concept of factorial before we look at the example of factorial in recursion
What Is Factorial? :- The factorial of a number is the function that multiplies the number by every natural number
Let’s see we have number 4 factorial what this translate to is 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 = 24 so The factorial of 4 is 24

Now let’s write a recursion function for factorial of 4 to find out the factorial of 4

jsx
function factorial(n) {
  if (n == 1) {
    return 1;
  } else {
    return n * factorial(n - 1);
    // n * factorial(n - 1) is nothing just a factorial formula n! = n × (n - 1)!
  }
}
console.log(factorial(4)); // 24