tail-recursion Archives

[Solved] Why does int main() { return main(); } cause stackoverflow and not tail recursion?

December 17, 2022 by Kirat

The code you have shown will call main infinitely, and therefore will result a stack overflow. This is true in the case of any function and not specific to main. Each function call a stack frame is created in memory, and as infinite such frames is created as the recursion goes deep, you get a … Read more

[Solved] Why does the absence of an else block translate to Unit type return for a function?

September 25, 2022 by Kirat

I can correct this by adding the else clause, but how come if there is no outcome handled by default, the function tries to return a Unit? In Scala, unlike more “imperative” languages, (almost) everything is an expression (there are very few statements), and every expression evaluates to a value (which also means that every … Read more