This is a very good point. Anything that can be done with recursion can also
be done using a loop.
Sometimes implementing an algorithm with a loop makes for horrendous code whereas recursive code can be elegant and simple - consider algorithms for processing tree-structured data!
Does anybody know if there is a performance increase ? I would assume there
isnt.
It depends. Recursion relies on function calls which can be expensive (creating a stack frame, pushing variables etc). If the algorithm is sufficiently complex, the extra work you have to do to manage 'context' for a loop may exceed the function call overhead.
Sean A Corfield -- http://www.corfield.org/blog/
"If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive." -- Margaret Atwood
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