On 11/19/2011 01:36 AM, Kĩnũthia Mũchane wrote:
On 11/19/2011 06:03 AM, Asokan Pichai wrote:
Another way to do that is to avoid any intermediate variables altogether
That may be easier to understand YMMV
def counter(mylist, val):
if len(mylist == 0):
return 0
if mylist[0] == val:
return 1 + counter(mylist[1:], val)
else:
return counter(mylist[1:])
The intermediate variable explanation by Dave actually clinched it for
me. Actually, the one I wrote is suspiciously similar to yours ;-).
Anyway, thanks Asokan!
FWIW, Asokan's code looks exactly right to me. But I figured the version
I supplied would make it clearer to you what was happening.
The key to thinking recursively is to figure out exactly what the
function as a whole does, then figure out how to use exactly such a
function that solves a somewhat smaller problem, to solve the whole
thing. Since the function as a whole takes in a list, and returns a
count, that's the way to use the "smaller problem" function. Both
Asokan's answer and mine do that. But his "local variable" is implied
in the expressions, where I made it explicit so you could see what was
happening.
If you're familiar with the mathematical proof by induction, this is
very analogous.
--
DaveA
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