What is the merits and demerit of recursion in algorithm?

Answer 1

The advantages of recursion tend to revolve around the fact that there are quite a few algorithms which lend themselves to recursion (tree traversal, binary searches, quick sort, etc.)

The disadvantages of recursion include:

* finite number of recursive steps (limited heap space) * speed/efficiency (easier to increment a loop counter than call a function)

Answer 2

The merit of recursion is that each call maintains the state of all the local variables in the previous call. However this is only useful if the variables are required after each recursion returns. If they are not required then it is a demerit, as each recursive call will add an overhead in making an unnecessary function call (which is expensive). The function will therefore perform much better if implemented as an iterative loop rather than as a recursive function.

Answer 3

Pros: it's easy ie: factorial

int factorial(int n) { return n>=1 ? n * factorial(n-1) : 1; }

Cons: your program can crash because of it's stack limit.

In example above try n=200 :)