recursion

Question 1

what is a recursive function

Answer 1

a function that calls itself

Question 2

base case

Answer 2

the condition that stops the recursion

Question 3

recursive case

Answer 3

what the recursion is doing

Question 4

why is the base case important

Answer 4

it stops the function from continuing infinitely which would be bad as it would eventually cause stack overflow

Question 5

why do we need recursion in haskell

Answer 5

it is purely functional and enforces immutability therefore we wouldn’t be able to change i in a for loop

Question 6

head recursion

Answer 6

each recursive call waits for the next call
cant get any actual value until the base case has been reached

Question 7

what are negatives of head recursion

Answer 7

deep stack usage
large inputs can lead to stack overflow

Question 8

what makes a function tail recursive

Answer 8

the recursive call is the last operation in the function

Question 9

how does tail recursion work

Answer 9

each time the function is called the result gets accumulated

Question 10

what are two benefits of tail recursion

Answer 10

the same stack frame can be used instead of creating new ones
optimises memory usage by avoiding deep stack calls