Question

Problem set 3: recursion. Does anyone know how to operate a counter in a recursive function?
Normally I'd use:
counter=0
blah blah
counter=counter+1

However in a recursive function this would reset the counter to zero. I can return a +1, but I'd prefer to return a total.

Any ideas? - thanks

Answer 1

You can do something like passing a counter as an argument (using a default value at initialization). Like this: http://codepad.org/AhHSF3nK
This is just a template, there are other ways to do this.

Answer 2

thanx

Answer 3

You can increment a global variable with the global keyword. You will often increment or decrement the variable by passing an appropriate expression in the recursive call, i.e.

def f(n):
if n == 2:
return 2
else:
return n * f(n - 1)

f(52)