Java™ How To Program (Early Objects), Tenth Edition

18.1 Introduction

The programs we’ve discussed so far are generally structured as methods that call one another in a hierarchical manner. For some problems, it’s useful to have a method call itself. A method that does so is known as a recursive method. A recursive method can call itself either directly or indirectly through another method. Recursion is an important topic discussed at length in upper-level computer science courses. In this chapter, we consider recursion conceptually, then present several programs containing recursive methods. Figure 18.1 summarizes the recursion examples and exercises in this book.

Fig. 18.1 | Summary of the recursion ...