The Little Book Of Recursion: For Programmers

The fastest, easiest way to master recursion.

Recursion is a powerful programming technique. A function that calls itself recursively not only saves programming effort and avoids repetition but it can also be used to navigate complex structures such as Trees and Class Hierarchies. This book explains both the theory and the practice of recursion with numerous short programs written in C, Ruby and C#. However, you don’t need to program in those languages to follow this book. The techniques explained in The Little Book Of Recursion can be applied to any mainstream programming language.

This book explains...

• Recursive Functions
• The Call Stack
• Stack Frames
• Stack Corruption
• Recursion and Scope
• Fibonacci Recursion
• Infinite Recursion
• Navigating Tree Structures
• Disk Directory Recursion
• Examples in C, Ruby, C#

The Little Book Of Recursion guides you step-by-step towards a deep understanding of using recursive functions and techniques, no matter which programming language you are using. It is illustrated throughout. By the time you finish this book, you will understand how recursion works and how to use recursive functions efficiently and safely. Whether you are studying computer science or whether you are a working programmer who needs a deeper understanding of recursion, this book explains what you need to know quickly and simply.

Each topic is explained with code examples. All the source code is provided as a free download from the publisher's web site.

Huw Collingbourne has been a programmer for more than 30 years. He is an online programming instructor who has taught tens of thousands of students to code in languages such as C, C#, Java, Object Pascal and Ruby. He had written programming columns for numerous computer magazines such as PC Plus and Computer Shopper. He is Technical Director of the independent development company, SapphireSteel Software. He is the author of a number of programming books including The Book Of Ruby, The Little Book Of C and The Little Book of Recursion.

The Little Book Of Recursion gives you just the stuff you really need to get straight to the heart of C pointers without all the fluff and padding.