Recursive question.

[mdh]

This little program, which is heavily adapted from K&R (Exc 4-12)
converts an integer to a string, recursively. My questions are these.

1) I think that as each successive recursion occurs, the automatic
variables are retained somewhere? so that when the function is
completed at a later point ( I hope I am expressing this vaguely
correctly) those automatic variables that were retained are again used.
Is my understanding correct?

2) In this particular function, I noticed that as each recursion
completes it's evaluation, 'k' is returned. I know where 'k' goes in
the last evaluation, (back to "main") but where does it go, for lack of
a better phrase, prior to that?

Thanks in advance.

/*****/
# include <stdio.h>
# define MAXNUM 50

int main () {
int itoa( char s[], int i);
int i=-234, j;
char s[MAXNUM];
j=itoa(s,i);
printf ("the number of characters in %s is %d", s, j);
return 0;
}
/******** itoa ***********/

# include <math.h>

int itoa( char s[MAXNUM], int i){
static int k;
{
if ( i / 10)
itoa(s, i/10);
else{
k=0;
if (i < 0)
s[k++]='-';
}
s[k++]=(abs(i) % 10 + '0');
s[k]='\0';
}

return k;

}

/******/

[Kurt Weber]

mdh wrote:

This little program, which is heavily adapted from K&R (Exc 4-12)
converts an integer to a string, recursively. My questions are these.

1) I think that as each successive recursion occurs, the automatic
variables are retained somewhere? so that when the function is
completed at a later point ( I hope I am expressing this vaguely
correctly) those automatic variables that were retained are again used.
Is my understanding correct?

If I understand your explanation of your understanding correctly, then yes,
your understanding is correct.

Of course, it could be that I misunderstand your understanding.

:D

>
2) In this particular function, I noticed that as each recursion
completes it's evaluation, 'k' is returned. I know where 'k' goes in
the last evaluation, (back to "main") but where does it go, for lack of
a better phrase, prior to that?

It doesn't really "go" anywhere...it's ignored, because it's not needed
except when called from main(). The reason for this is that "k" is static,
which means that its lifetime is equal to the lifetime of the program,
rather than the lifetime of the particular instance of the particular
function call.

Think of a static local as essentially a global with restricted
scope--instead of being visible to the entire program or entire module,
it's only visible to the particular function it's called in. But, its
value is kept from one call of that function to the next--even if the
function is called recursively.

Here's an example:
int example(void){
int k = 0;

k++;
return k;
}

In this example, k will be reinitialized each time example() is called, so
example() will always return 1;

int example2(void){
static int k = 0;

k++;
return k;
}

In this example, k will only be initialized the first time example2() is
called, so the return value of the function will increase by 1 each time it
is called.

--
Kurt Weber
Help stop socialism: Vote Libertarian!

[Eric Sosman]

mdh wrote:

This little program, which is heavily adapted from K&R (Exc 4-12)
converts an integer to a string, recursively. My questions are these.

1) I think that as each successive recursion occurs, the automatic
variables are retained somewhere? so that when the function is
completed at a later point ( I hope I am expressing this vaguely
correctly) those automatic variables that were retained are again used.
Is my understanding correct?

Yes. Each invocation of a function gets its own private
set of `auto' variables, distinct from those of other active
functions. A function's own arguments behave the same way:
they act like `auto' variables that are initialized by the
function's caller, and each called function gets its own set.

2) In this particular function, I noticed that as each recursion
completes it's evaluation, 'k' is returned. I know where 'k' goes in
the last evaluation, (back to "main") but where does it go, for lack of
a better phrase, prior to that?

If a function returns a value, the caller has an opportunity
to make use of that value by storing it in a variable, adding it
to some other value, printing it out, or whatever. The caller
can also just ignore the returned value, in which case it "goes
nowhere" and simply "disappears." A caller is not obliged to use
the value a function returns. (Did you know that printf() returns
a value? Has non-use of that value ever bothered you?)

[code snipped; see up-thread]

--
Eric Sosman
es*****@acm-dot-org.invalid

[mdh]

Kurt Weber wrote:

>If I understand your explanation of your understanding correctly, then yes,

your understanding is correct.

Of course, it could be that I misunderstand your understanding.

I understand!!! :-)

Thank you.

[mdh]

Eric Sosman wrote:

>Yes. Each invocation of a function gets its own private
set of `auto' variables, distinct from those of other active
functions. A function's own arguments behave the same way:
they act like `auto' variables that are in......

Thank you Eric

[jacob navia]

Kurt Weber wrote:
[snip]

The specs talked about a STRING, not a file.