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One of the topics that seems to come up regularly on mailing lists and online discussions is the merits (or lack thereof) of doing a Computer Science Degree. An argument that seems to come up time and again for the negative party is that they have been coding for some number of years and they have never used recursion.
So the question is:
What is recursion?
When would I use recursion?
Why don't people use recursion?
There are a number of good explanations of recursion in this thread, this answer is about why you shouldn't use it in most languages.* In the majority of major imperative language implementations (i.e. every major implementation of C, C++, Basic, Python, Ruby,Java, and C#) iteration is vastly preferable to recursion.
To see why, walk through the steps that the above languages use to call a function:
space is carved out on the stack for the function's arguments and local variables
the function's arguments are copied into this new space
control jumps to the function
the function's code runs
the function's result is copied into a return value
the stack is rewound to its previous position
control jumps back to where the function was called
Doing all of these steps takes time, usually a little bit more than it takes to iterate through a loop. However, the real problem is in step #1. When many programs start, they allocate a single chunk of memory for their stack, and when they run out of that memory (often, but not always due to recursion), the program crashes due to a stack overflow.
So in these languages recursion is slower and it makes you vulnerable to crashing. There are still some arguments for using it though. In general, code written recursively is shorter and a bit more elegant, once you know how to read it.
There is a technique that language implementers can use called tail call optimization which can eliminate some classes of stack overflow. Put succinctly: if a function's return expression is simply the result of a function call, then you don't need to add a new level onto the stack, you can reuse the current one for the function being called. Regrettably, few imperative language-implementations have tail-call optimization built in.
* I love recursion. My favorite static language doesn't use loops at all, recursion is the only way to do something repeatedly. I just don't think that recursion is generally a good idea in languages that aren't tuned for it.
** By the way Mario, the typical name for your ArrangeString function is "join", and I'd be surprised if your language of choice doesn't already have an implementation of it.
Simple english example of recursion.
A child couldn't sleep, so her mother told her a story about a little frog,
who couldn't sleep, so the frog's mother told her a story about a little bear,
who couldn't sleep, so the bear's mother told her a story about a little weasel...
who fell asleep.
...and the little bear fell asleep;
...and the little frog fell asleep;
...and the child fell asleep.
In the most basic computer science sense, recursion is a function that calls itself. Say you have a linked list structure:
struct Node {
Node* next;
};
And you want to find out how long a linked list is you can do this with recursion:
int length(const Node* list) {
if (!list->next) {
return 1;
} else {
return 1 + length(list->next);
}
}
(This could of course be done with a for loop as well, but is useful as an illustration of the concept)
Whenever a function calls itself, creating a loop, then that's recursion. As with anything there are good uses and bad uses for recursion.
The most simple example is tail recursion where the very last line of the function is a call to itself:
int FloorByTen(int num)
{
if (num % 10 == 0)
return num;
else
return FloorByTen(num-1);
}
However, this is a lame, almost pointless example because it can easily be replaced by more efficient iteration. After all, recursion suffers from function call overhead, which in the example above could be substantial compared to the operation inside the function itself.
So the whole reason to do recursion rather than iteration should be to take advantage of the call stack to do some clever stuff. For example, if you call a function multiple times with different parameters inside the same loop then that's a way to accomplish branching. A classic example is the Sierpinski triangle.
You can draw one of those very simply with recursion, where the call stack branches in 3 directions:
private void BuildVertices(double x, double y, double len)
{
if (len > 0.002)
{
mesh.Positions.Add(new Point3D(x, y + len, -len));
mesh.Positions.Add(new Point3D(x - len, y - len, -len));
mesh.Positions.Add(new Point3D(x + len, y - len, -len));
len *= 0.5;
BuildVertices(x, y + len, len);
BuildVertices(x - len, y - len, len);
BuildVertices(x + len, y - len, len);
}
}
If you attempt to do the same thing with iteration I think you'll find it takes a lot more code to accomplish.
Other common use cases might include traversing hierarchies, e.g. website crawlers, directory comparisons, etc.
Conclusion
In practical terms, recursion makes the most sense whenever you need iterative branching.
Recursion is a method of solving problems based on the divide and conquer mentality.
The basic idea is that you take the original problem and divide it into smaller (more easily solved) instances of itself, solve those smaller instances (usually by using the same algorithm again) and then reassemble them into the final solution.
The canonical example is a routine to generate the Factorial of n. The Factorial of n is calculated by multiplying all of the numbers between 1 and n. An iterative solution in C# looks like this:
public int Fact(int n)
{
int fact = 1;
for( int i = 2; i <= n; i++)
{
fact = fact * i;
}
return fact;
}
There's nothing surprising about the iterative solution and it should make sense to anyone familiar with C#.
The recursive solution is found by recognising that the nth Factorial is n * Fact(n-1). Or to put it another way, if you know what a particular Factorial number is you can calculate the next one. Here is the recursive solution in C#:
public int FactRec(int n)
{
if( n < 2 )
{
return 1;
}
return n * FactRec( n - 1 );
}
The first part of this function is known as a Base Case (or sometimes Guard Clause) and is what prevents the algorithm from running forever. It just returns the value 1 whenever the function is called with a value of 1 or less. The second part is more interesting and is known as the Recursive Step. Here we call the same method with a slightly modified parameter (we decrement it by 1) and then multiply the result with our copy of n.
When first encountered this can be kind of confusing so it's instructive to examine how it works when run. Imagine that we call FactRec(5). We enter the routine, are not picked up by the base case and so we end up like this:
// In FactRec(5)
return 5 * FactRec( 5 - 1 );
// which is
return 5 * FactRec(4);
If we re-enter the method with the parameter 4 we are again not stopped by the guard clause and so we end up at:
// In FactRec(4)
return 4 * FactRec(3);
If we substitute this return value into the return value above we get
// In FactRec(5)
return 5 * (4 * FactRec(3));
This should give you a clue as to how the final solution is arrived at so we'll fast track and show each step on the way down:
return 5 * (4 * FactRec(3));
return 5 * (4 * (3 * FactRec(2)));
return 5 * (4 * (3 * (2 * FactRec(1))));
return 5 * (4 * (3 * (2 * (1))));
That final substitution happens when the base case is triggered. At this point we have a simple algrebraic formula to solve which equates directly to the definition of Factorials in the first place.
It's instructive to note that every call into the method results in either a base case being triggered or a call to the same method where the parameters are closer to a base case (often called a recursive call). If this is not the case then the method will run forever.
Recursion is solving a problem with a function that calls itself. A good example of this is a factorial function. Factorial is a math problem where factorial of 5, for example, is 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1. This function solves this in C# for positive integers (not tested - there may be a bug).
public int Factorial(int n)
{
if (n <= 1)
return 1;
return n * Factorial(n - 1);
}
Recursion refers to a method which solves a problem by solving a smaller version of the problem and then using that result plus some other computation to formulate the answer to the original problem. Often times, in the process of solving the smaller version, the method will solve a yet smaller version of the problem, and so on, until it reaches a "base case" which is trivial to solve.
For instance, to calculate a factorial for the number X, one can represent it as X times the factorial of X-1. Thus, the method "recurses" to find the factorial of X-1, and then multiplies whatever it got by X to give a final answer. Of course, to find the factorial of X-1, it'll first calculate the factorial of X-2, and so on. The base case would be when X is 0 or 1, in which case it knows to return 1 since 0! = 1! = 1.
Consider an old, well known problem:
In mathematics, the greatest common divisor (gcd) … of two or more non-zero integers, is the largest positive integer that divides the numbers without a remainder.
The definition of gcd is surprisingly simple:
where mod is the modulo operator (that is, the remainder after integer division).
In English, this definition says the greatest common divisor of any number and zero is that number, and the greatest common divisor of two numbers m and n is the greatest common divisor of n and the remainder after dividing m by n.
If you'd like to know why this works, see the Wikipedia article on the Euclidean algorithm.
Let's compute gcd(10, 8) as an example. Each step is equal to the one just before it:
gcd(10, 8)
gcd(10, 10 mod 8)
gcd(8, 2)
gcd(8, 8 mod 2)
gcd(2, 0)
2
In the first step, 8 does not equal zero, so the second part of the definition applies. 10 mod 8 = 2 because 8 goes into 10 once with a remainder of 2. At step 3, the second part applies again, but this time 8 mod 2 = 0 because 2 divides 8 with no remainder. At step 5, the second argument is 0, so the answer is 2.
Did you notice that gcd appears on both the left and right sides of the equals sign? A mathematician would say this definition is recursive because the expression you're defining recurs inside its definition.
Recursive definitions tend to be elegant. For example, a recursive definition for the sum of a list is
sum l =
if empty(l)
return 0
else
return head(l) + sum(tail(l))
where head is the first element in a list and tail is the rest of the list. Note that sum recurs inside its definition at the end.
Maybe you'd prefer the maximum value in a list instead:
max l =
if empty(l)
error
elsif length(l) = 1
return head(l)
else
tailmax = max(tail(l))
if head(l) > tailmax
return head(l)
else
return tailmax
You might define multiplication of non-negative integers recursively to turn it into a series of additions:
a * b =
if b = 0
return 0
else
return a + (a * (b - 1))
If that bit about transforming multiplication into a series of additions doesn't make sense, try expanding a few simple examples to see how it works.
Merge sort has a lovely recursive definition:
sort(l) =
if empty(l) or length(l) = 1
return l
else
(left,right) = split l
return merge(sort(left), sort(right))
Recursive definitions are all around if you know what to look for. Notice how all of these definitions have very simple base cases, e.g., gcd(m, 0) = m. The recursive cases whittle away at the problem to get down to the easy answers.
With this understanding, you can now appreciate the other algorithms in Wikipedia's article on recursion!
A function that calls itself
When a function can be (easily) decomposed into a simple operation plus the same function on some smaller portion of the problem. I should say, rather, that this makes it a good candidate for recursion.
They do!
The canonical example is the factorial which looks like:
int fact(int a)
{
if(a==1)
return 1;
return a*fact(a-1);
}
In general, recursion isn't necessarily fast (function call overhead tends to be high because recursive functions tend to be small, see above) and can suffer from some problems (stack overflow anyone?). Some say they tend to be hard to get 'right' in non-trivial cases but I don't really buy into that. In some situations, recursion makes the most sense and is the most elegant and clear way to write a particular function. It should be noted that some languages favor recursive solutions and optimize them much more (LISP comes to mind).
A recursive function is one which calls itself. The most common reason I've found to use it is traversing a tree structure. For example, if I have a TreeView with checkboxes (think installation of a new program, "choose features to install" page), I might want a "check all" button which would be something like this (pseudocode):
function cmdCheckAllClick {
checkRecursively(TreeView1.RootNode);
}
function checkRecursively(Node n) {
n.Checked = True;
foreach ( n.Children as child ) {
checkRecursively(child);
}
}
So you can see that the checkRecursively first checks the node which it is passed, then calls itself for each of that node's children.
You do need to be a bit careful with recursion. If you get into an infinite recursive loop, you will get a Stack Overflow exception :)
I can't think of a reason why people shouldn't use it, when appropriate. It is useful in some circumstances, and not in others.
I think that because it's an interesting technique, some coders perhaps end up using it more often than they should, without real justification. This has given recursion a bad name in some circles.
Recursion is an expression directly or indirectly referencing itself.
Consider recursive acronyms as a simple example:
GNU stands for GNU's Not Unix
PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
YAML stands for YAML Ain't Markup Language
WINE stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator
VISA stands for Visa International Service Association
More examples on Wikipedia
Recursion works best with what I like to call "fractal problems", where you're dealing with a big thing that's made of smaller versions of that big thing, each of which is an even smaller version of the big thing, and so on. If you ever have to traverse or search through something like a tree or nested identical structures, you've got a problem that might be a good candidate for recursion.
People avoid recursion for a number of reasons:
Most people (myself included) cut their programming teeth on procedural or object-oriented programming as opposed to functional programming. To such people, the iterative approach (typically using loops) feels more natural.
Those of us who cut our programming teeth on procedural or object-oriented programming have often been told to avoid recursion because it's error prone.
We're often told that recursion is slow. Calling and returning from a routine repeatedly involves a lot of stack pushing and popping, which is slower than looping. I think some languages handle this better than others, and those languages are most likely not those where the dominant paradigm is procedural or object-oriented.
For at least a couple of programming languages I've used, I remember hearing recommendations not to use recursion if it gets beyond a certain depth because its stack isn't that deep.
A recursive statement is one in which you define the process of what to do next as a combination of the inputs and what you have already done.
For example, take factorial:
factorial(6) = 6*5*4*3*2*1
But it's easy to see factorial(6) also is:
6 * factorial(5) = 6*(5*4*3*2*1).
So generally:
factorial(n) = n*factorial(n-1)
Of course, the tricky thing about recursion is that if you want to define things in terms of what you have already done, there needs to be some place to start.
In this example, we just make a special case by defining factorial(1) = 1.
Now we see it from the bottom up:
factorial(6) = 6*factorial(5)
= 6*5*factorial(4)
= 6*5*4*factorial(3) = 6*5*4*3*factorial(2) = 6*5*4*3*2*factorial(1) = 6*5*4*3*2*1
Since we defined factorial(1) = 1, we reach the "bottom".
Generally speaking, recursive procedures have two parts:
1) The recursive part, which defines some procedure in terms of new inputs combined with what you've "already done" via the same procedure. (i.e. factorial(n) = n*factorial(n-1))
2) A base part, which makes sure that the process doesn't repeat forever by giving it some place to start (i.e. factorial(1) = 1)
It can be a bit confusing to get your head around at first, but just look at a bunch of examples and it should all come together. If you want a much deeper understanding of the concept, study mathematical induction. Also, be aware that some languages optimize for recursive calls while others do not. It's pretty easy to make insanely slow recursive functions if you're not careful, but there are also techniques to make them performant in most cases.
Hope this helps...
I like this definition:
In recursion, a routine solves a small part of a problem itself, divides the problem into smaller pieces, and then calls itself to solve each of the smaller pieces.
I also like Steve McConnells discussion of recursion in Code Complete where he criticises the examples used in Computer Science books on Recursion.
Don't use recursion for factorials or Fibonacci numbers
One problem with
computer-science textbooks is that
they present silly examples of
recursion. The typical examples are
computing a factorial or computing a
Fibonacci sequence. Recursion is a
powerful tool, and it's really dumb to
use it in either of those cases. If a
programmer who worked for me used
recursion to compute a factorial, I'd
hire someone else.
I thought this was a very interesting point to raise and may be a reason why recursion is often misunderstood.
EDIT:
This was not a dig at Dav's answer - I had not seen that reply when I posted this
1.)
A method is recursive if it can call itself; either directly:
void f() {
... f() ...
}
or indirectly:
void f() {
... g() ...
}
void g() {
... f() ...
}
2.) When to use recursion
Q: Does using recursion usually make your code faster?
A: No.
Q: Does using recursion usually use less memory?
A: No.
Q: Then why use recursion?
A: It sometimes makes your code much simpler!
3.) People use recursion only when it is very complex to write iterative code. For example, tree traversal techniques like preorder, postorder can be made both iterative and recursive. But usually we use recursive because of its simplicity.
Here's a simple example: how many elements in a set. (there are better ways to count things, but this is a nice simple recursive example.)
First, we need two rules:
if the set is empty, the count of items in the set is zero (duh!).
if the set is not empty, the count is one plus the number of items in the set after one item is removed.
Suppose you have a set like this: [x x x]. let's count how many items there are.
the set is [x x x] which is not empty, so we apply rule 2. the number of items is one plus the number of items in [x x] (i.e. we removed an item).
the set is [x x], so we apply rule 2 again: one + number of items in [x].
the set is [x], which still matches rule 2: one + number of items in [].
Now the set is [], which matches rule 1: the count is zero!
Now that we know the answer in step 4 (0), we can solve step 3 (1 + 0)
Likewise, now that we know the answer in step 3 (1), we can solve step 2 (1 + 1)
And finally now that we know the answer in step 2 (2), we can solve step 1 (1 + 2) and get the count of items in [x x x], which is 3. Hooray!
We can represent this as:
count of [x x x] = 1 + count of [x x]
= 1 + (1 + count of [x])
= 1 + (1 + (1 + count of []))
= 1 + (1 + (1 + 0)))
= 1 + (1 + (1))
= 1 + (2)
= 3
When applying a recursive solution, you usually have at least 2 rules:
the basis, the simple case which states what happens when you have "used up" all of your data. This is usually some variation of "if you are out of data to process, your answer is X"
the recursive rule, which states what happens if you still have data. This is usually some kind of rule that says "do something to make your data set smaller, and reapply your rules to the smaller data set."
If we translate the above to pseudocode, we get:
numberOfItems(set)
if set is empty
return 0
else
remove 1 item from set
return 1 + numberOfItems(set)
There's a lot more useful examples (traversing a tree, for example) which I'm sure other people will cover.
Well, that's a pretty decent definition you have. And wikipedia has a good definition too. So I'll add another (probably worse) definition for you.
When people refer to "recursion", they're usually talking about a function they've written which calls itself repeatedly until it is done with its work. Recursion can be helpful when traversing hierarchies in data structures.
An example: A recursive definition of a staircase is:
A staircase consists of:
- a single step and a staircase (recursion)
- or only a single step (termination)
To recurse on a solved problem: do nothing, you're done.
To recurse on an open problem: do the next step, then recurse on the rest.
In plain English:
Assume you can do 3 things:
Take one apple
Write down tally marks
Count tally marks
You have a lot of apples in front of you on a table and you want to know how many apples there are.
start
Is the table empty?
yes: Count the tally marks and cheer like it's your birthday!
no: Take 1 apple and put it aside
Write down a tally mark
goto start
The process of repeating the same thing till you are done is called recursion.
I hope this is the "plain english" answer you are looking for!
A recursive function is a function that contains a call to itself. A recursive struct is a struct that contains an instance of itself. You can combine the two as a recursive class. The key part of a recursive item is that it contains an instance/call of itself.
Consider two mirrors facing each other. We've seen the neat infinity effect they make. Each reflection is an instance of a mirror, which is contained within another instance of a mirror, etc. The mirror containing a reflection of itself is recursion.
A binary search tree is a good programming example of recursion. The structure is recursive with each Node containing 2 instances of a Node. Functions to work on a binary search tree are also recursive.
This is an old question, but I want to add an answer from logistical point of view (i.e not from algorithm correctness point of view or performance point of view).
I use Java for work, and Java doesn't support nested function. As such, if I want to do recursion, I might have to define an external function (which exists only because my code bumps against Java's bureaucratic rule), or I might have to refactor the code altogether (which I really hate to do).
Thus, I often avoid recursion, and use stack operation instead, because recursion itself is essentially a stack operation.
You want to use it anytime you have a tree structure. It is very useful in reading XML.
Recursion as it applies to programming is basically calling a function from inside its own definition (inside itself), with different parameters so as to accomplish a task.
"If I have a hammer, make everything look like a nail."
Recursion is a problem-solving strategy for huge problems, where at every step just, "turn 2 small things into one bigger thing," each time with the same hammer.
Example
Suppose your desk is covered with a disorganized mess of 1024 papers. How do you make one neat, clean stack of papers from the mess, using recursion?
Divide: Spread all the sheets out, so you have just one sheet in each "stack".
Conquer:
Go around, putting each sheet on top of one other sheet. You now have stacks of 2.
Go around, putting each 2-stack on top of another 2-stack. You now have stacks of 4.
Go around, putting each 4-stack on top of another 4-stack. You now have stacks of 8.
... on and on ...
You now have one huge stack of 1024 sheets!
Notice that this is pretty intuitive, aside from counting everything (which isn't strictly necessary). You might not go all the way down to 1-sheet stacks, in reality, but you could and it would still work. The important part is the hammer: With your arms, you can always put one stack on top of the other to make a bigger stack, and it doesn't matter (within reason) how big either stack is.
Recursion is the process where a method call iself to be able to perform a certain task. It reduces redundency of code. Most recurssive functions or methods must have a condifiton to break the recussive call i.e. stop it from calling itself if a condition is met - this prevents the creating of an infinite loop. Not all functions are suited to be used recursively.
hey, sorry if my opinion agrees with someone, I'm just trying to explain recursion in plain english.
suppose you have three managers - Jack, John and Morgan.
Jack manages 2 programmers, John - 3, and Morgan - 5.
you are going to give every manager 300$ and want to know what would it cost.
The answer is obvious - but what if 2 of Morgan-s employees are also managers?
HERE comes the recursion.
you start from the top of the hierarchy. the summery cost is 0$.
you start with Jack,
Then check if he has any managers as employees. if you find any of them are, check if they have any managers as employees and so on. Add 300$ to the summery cost every time you find a manager.
when you are finished with Jack, go to John, his employees and then to Morgan.
You'll never know, how much cycles will you go before getting an answer, though you know how many managers you have and how many Budget can you spend.
Recursion is a tree, with branches and leaves, called parents and children respectively.
When you use a recursion algorithm, you more or less consciously are building a tree from the data.
In plain English, recursion means to repeat someting again and again.
In programming one example is of calling the function within itself .
Look on the following example of calculating factorial of a number:
public int fact(int n)
{
if (n==0) return 1;
else return n*fact(n-1)
}
Any algorithm exhibits structural recursion on a datatype if basically consists of a switch-statement with a case for each case of the datatype.
for example, when you are working on a type
tree = null
| leaf(value:integer)
| node(left: tree, right:tree)
a structural recursive algorithm would have the form
function computeSomething(x : tree) =
if x is null: base case
if x is leaf: do something with x.value
if x is node: do something with x.left,
do something with x.right,
combine the results
this is really the most obvious way to write any algorith that works on a data structure.
now, when you look at the integers (well, the natural numbers) as defined using the Peano axioms
integer = 0 | succ(integer)
you see that a structural recursive algorithm on integers looks like this
function computeSomething(x : integer) =
if x is 0 : base case
if x is succ(prev) : do something with prev
the too-well-known factorial function is about the most trivial example of
this form.
function call itself or use its own definition.
Related
I am pretty sure that I thoroughly understand how the methods with only one recursion work.
Ex) calculating factorial
public int factorial(int n){ //factorial recursion
if(n==0){
return 1;
}
else{
return n*factorial(n-1);
}
}
For these methods, I can even picture what's going on in the stacks and what values are being returned at each stack level.
But Whenever, I encounter methods with Double Recursions, the nightmare begins.
Below is a recursion problem with double recursions from coding bat.
Ex) Given an array of ints, is it possible to choose a group of some of the ints, such that the group sums to the given target? If yes, true. If no, false.
You use 3 parameters; starting index start, An int Array nums, target int value target.
Below is the solution for this problem.
public boolean groupSum(int start, int[] nums, int target) {
if (start >= nums.length) return (target == 0);
if (groupSum(start + 1, nums, target - nums[start])) return true;
if (groupSum(start + 1, nums, target)) return true;
return false;
}
My take to understand this solution is this. Say I was given an array {2,4,8} with starting index = 0, and target value 10. So (0,{2,4,8},10) goes in through the method, the function gets re-called at
if (groupSum(start + 1, nums, target - nums[start])) return true;
so it becomes (1,{2,4,8},8) and it does over and over until start index hits
3. when it hits 3. The stack at the last level(?) goes to the second recursive call. And this is where I start losing track of what's happening.
Can anybody break this down for me? And when people use double recursion,(I know it's very inefficient and in practice, almost no one uses it for its inefficiency. But just in an attempt to understand it.)can they actually visualize what's going to happen? or do they just use it hoping that the base case and recursion would work properly? I think this applies generally to all the ppl who wrote merge sort, tower of hanoi alogrithm etc..
Any help is greatly appreciated..
The idea of a double recursion is to break the problem into two smaller problems. Once you solve the smaller problems, you can either join their solutions (as is done in merge sort) or choose one of them - which is done in your example, which only requires the second smaller problem to be solved if solving the first smaller problem didn't solve the full problem.
Your example tries to determine if there is a subset of the input nums array whose sum is the target sum. start determines which part of the array is considered by the current recursive call (when it's 0, the entire array is considered).
The problem is broken to two, since if such a subset exists, it either contains the first element of the array (in which case the problem is reduced to finding if there's a sub-set of the last n-1 elements of the array whose sum is target minus the value of the first element) or doesn't contain it (in which case the problem is reduced to finding if there's a sub-set of the last n-1 elements of the array whose sum is target).
The first recursion handles the case where the subset contains the first element, which is why it makes a recursive call that would look for the target sum minus the first element in the remaining n-1 elements of the array. If the first recursion returns true, it means that the required subset exists, so the second recursion is never called.
The second recursion handles the case where the subset doesn't contain the first element, which is why it makes a recursive call that would look for the target sum in the remaining n-1 elements of the array (this time the first element is not subtracted from the target sum, since the first element is not included in the sum). Again, if the second recursive call returns true, if means that the required subset exists.
Well if you want to visualize it, usually it's kind of like a tree. You first follow one path through the tree until the end, then step one back and pick a different path (if possible). If there is none or you are happy with your result you just take another step back and so on.
I don't know if this helps you but when I learned recursion, it helped to just think of my method as already working.
So I thought: Great, so basically my method is already working, but I can't call it with the same parameters and have to make sure I return the right value for these exact parameters by using different ones.
If we take that example:
At first we know that if we have no numbers to look at left, then the answer depends on if the target is 0. (first line)
Now what do we do with the rest? Well... we'd need to think about it for a moment.
Just think about the very first number. Under what circumstances is it part of the solution? Well that would be if you could create target-firstnumber with the rest of the numbers. Because then when you add firstnumber, you reach target.
So you try to see if that's possible. If so, it's solvable. (second line)
But if not, it's still possible that the first number just isn't important for the solution. So you have to try again to build the target without that number. (third line)
And that's basically all there is to this.
Of course to think like this you need two things:
1. You need to believe that your method already works for other parameters
2. You need to make sure your recursion terminates. That's the first line in this example but you should always think about if there is any combination of parameters that will just create an endless recursion.
Try to understand it like this: Recursion can be rewritten as a while-loop. where the condition of the while is the negation of the stop-condition of the recursion.
As already said, there is nothing called double recursion.
Assume you are playing the following Flip Game with your friend: Given a string that contains only these two characters: + and -, you and your friend take turns to flip two consecutive "++" into "--". The game ends when a person can no longer make a move and therefore the other person will be the winner.
Write a function to determine if the starting player can guarantee a win.
For example, given s = "++++", return true. The starting player can guarantee a win by flipping the middle "++" to become "+--+".
Here is my code:
public boolean canWin(String s) {
if(s==null || s.length()<2) return false;
char[] arr=s.toCharArray();
return canWinHelper(arr);
}
public boolean canWinHelper(char[] arr){
for(int i=0; i<arr.length-1; i++){
if(arr[i]=='+' && arr[i+1]=='+'){
arr[i]='-';
arr[i+1]='-';
boolean win=!canWinHelper(arr);
arr[i]='+';
arr[i+1]='+';
if(win) return true;
}
}
return false;
}
It works, but I'm not sure how to calculate the time complexity here since the function will keep calling itself until a false is returned. Anyone share some idea here?
Also during the search, we will encounter duplicate computation, so I think I can use a hashmap to avoid those duplicates. Key: String, Value: Boolean.
My updated code using a hashmap:
public boolean canWin(String s){
if(s==null || s.length()<2) return false;
HashMap<String,Boolean> map=new HashMap<String,Boolean>();
return helper(s,map);
}
public boolean helper(String s, HashMap<String,Boolean> map){
if(map.containsKey(s)) return map.get(s);
for(int i=0; i<s.length()-1; i++){
if(s.charAt(i)=='+' && s.charAt(i+1)=='+'){
String fliped=s.substring(0,i)+"--"+s.substring(i+2);
if(!helper(fliped,map)){
map.put(s,true);
return true;
}
}
}
map.put(s,false);
return false;
}
Still, I wanna know how to analyze the time and space complexity here?
Take that n = arr.length - 1
First pass you have n recursive calls. For each you have removed two +'s so each will have at most n-2 recursive calls, and so on.
So you have at most n+n(n-2)+n(n-2)(n-4)+... recursive calls.
In essence this is n!!(1+1/2+1/(2*4)+1/(2*4*8)+...) Since 1+1/2+1/(2*4)+1/(2*4*8)+... is convergent, ≤2, you have O(n!!)
Regarding memory, you have an array of length n for each recursive call, so you have n + nn + nnn + n ... (n/2 times) ... *n = n(n^(n/2)-1)/(n-1) and this is O(n^(n/2))
This is obviously pointing to not much better performance than with an exhaustive search.
For the hashed improvement, you are asking for all possible combinations that you have managed to create with your code. However, your code is not much different than the code that would actually create all combinations, apart from the fact that you are replacing two +'s with two -'s, which is reducing the complexity by some factor but not the level of it. Overall, the worst case scenario is the same as with the number of combinations of bits among n/2 locations which is 2^(n/2). Observe that hash function itself has probably some hidden log so the total complexity would be for search O(2^(n/2)*ln(n/2)) and memory O(2^(n/2)).
This is the worst case scenario. However, if there are arrangements where you cannot win, when there is no winning strategy, this above is really the complexity you need to count on.
The question of the average scenario is then the question of the number of cases where you can/cannot win and their distribution among all arrangements. This question has not much to do with your algorithm and requires a totally different set of tools in order to be solved.
After a few moments of checking whether the above reasoning is correct and to the point or not, I would be quite happy with the result, since it is telling me all that I need to know. You cannot expect that you will have an arrangement that will be favorable, and I really doubt that you have like only 0.01% of worst case arrangements, so you need to prepare the worst case scenario anyway and unless this is some special project the back-of-the-envelope calculation is your friend.
Anyway, these type of calculations are there to have test cases correctly prepared, not to have a correct and final implementation. Using the tests you can find what the hidden factors in O() really are, taking into account the compiler, memory consumption, pagination and so on.
Still not to leave this as it is, we can always improve the back-of-the-envelope reasoning, of course. For example, you actually do not have n-2 at each step, because it depends on the parity. For example for ++++++++... if you replace third +++--+++++... it is obvious that you are going to have n-3, not n-2 recursive calls, or even n-4. So the half number of calls may have n-3 recursive calls which would be n/2(n-3)+n/2(n-2)=n(n-5/2)
Observe that since n!=n!!(n-1)!! we can take n!!≈√n!, again n!=n!!!(n-1)!!!(n-2)!!! or n!!!≈∛n! This might lead to a conclusion that we should have something like O((n!)^(5/2)). The testing would tell me how much we can reduce x=3 in O((n!)^(x)).
(It is quite normal to look for the complexity in one particular form just like we have O((n!)^(x)), although it can be expressed differently. So I would continue with the complexity form O((n!)^(x)),1≤x≤3)
I have read many variations of the Knapsack problem, but the version I am tasked with is a little different and I don't quite understand how to solve it.
I have an array of integers that represent weights (ie. {1,4,6,12,7,2}) and need to find only one solution that adds up to the target weight.
I understand the basic algorithm, but I cannot understand how to implement it.
First, what is my base case? Is it when the array is empty? The target has been reached? The target has been over-reached? Or maybe some combination?
Second, when the target is over-reached, how do I backtrack and try the next item?
Third, what am I supposed to return? Should I be returning ints (in which case, am I supposed to print them out?)? Or do I return arrays and the final return is the solution?
Think carefully about the problem you are trying to solve. To approach this problem, I am
considering the inputs and outputs of the Knapsack algorithm.
Input: A set of integers (the knapsack) and a single integer (the proposed sum)
Output: A set of integers who add up to the proposed sum, or null.
In this way your code might look like this
public int[] knapsackSolve(int[] sack, int prospectiveSum) {
//your algorithm here
}
The recursive algorithm is straightforward. First compute the sum of the sack. If it equals
prospectiveSum then return the sack. Otherwise iterate over sack, and for each item initialise a new knapsack with that item removed. Call knapsackSolve on this. If there is a solution, return it. Otherwise proceed to the next item.
For example if we call knapsackSolve({1,2,3},5) the algorithm tries 1 + 2 + 3 = 5 which is false. So it loops through {1,2,3} and calls knapsackSolve on the sublists {2,3},{1,3} and {1,2}. knapsackSolve({2,3},5) is the one that returns a solution.
This isn't a very efficient algorithm although it illustrates fairly well how complex the Knapsack problem is!
Basically the Knapsack problem is formulated as (from Wikipedia): "Given a set of items, each with a mass and a value, determine the number of each item to include in a collection so that the total weight is less than or equal to a given limit and the total value is as large as possible. For your problem we are interested in weights only. So you can set all values to 1. Additionally we only want to know if the target weight can be reached exactly. I guess you are allowed to use a weight only once and not multiple times?
This problem can be solved nicely with dynamic programming. Are you familiar with that principle? Applying dynamic programming is much more elegant and quicker to program than backtracking. But if you are only allowed to do backtracking use the approach from user2738608 posted above.
My question is if there are some smart ways of debugging complicated recursive algorithms.
Assume that we have a complicated one (not a simple case when recursion counter is decreased in each 'nested iteration').
I mean something like recursive traversing of a graph when loops are possible.
I need to check if I am not getting endless loop somewhere. And doing this just using a debugger gives not certain answer (because I am not sure if an algorithm is in endless loop or just process as it should).
It's hard to explain it without concrete example. But what I need is...
'to check if the endless loops don't occur in let's say complicated recursive algorithm'.
You need to form a theory for why you think the algorithm does terminate. Ideally, prove the theory as a mathematical theorem.
You can look for a function of the problem state that does reduce on each recursive call. For example, see the following discussion of Ackermann's function, from Wikipedia
It may not be immediately obvious that the evaluation of A(m, n) always terminates. However, the recursion is bounded because in each recursive application either m decreases, or m remains the same and n decreases. Each time that n reaches zero, m decreases, so m eventually reaches zero as well. (Expressed more technically, in each case the pair (m, n) decreases in the lexicographic order on pairs, which is a well-ordering, just like the ordering of single non-negative integers; this means one cannot go down in the ordering infinitely many times in succession.) However, when m decreases there is no upper bound on how much n can increase — and it will often increase greatly.
That is the type of reasoning you should be thinking of applying to your algorithm.
If you cannot find any way to prove your algorithm terminates, consider looking for a variation whose termination you can prove. It is not always possible to decide whether an arbitrary program terminates or not. The trick is to write algorithms you can prove terminate.
Best is proving finiteness by pre and post conditions, variants and invariants. If you can specify a (virtual) formula which value increases on every call you have a guarantee.
This is the same as proving loops to be finite. Furthermore it might make complex algorithms more tackable.
You need to count the depth of recursive calls ... and then throw an exception if the depth of recursive calls reaches a certain threshold.
For example:
void TheMethod(object[] otherParameters, int recursiveCallDepth)
{
if (recursiveCallDepth > 100) {
throw new Exception("...."); }
TheMethod(otherParameters, ++recursiveCallDepth);
}
if you want to check for endless loops,
write a System.out.println("no its not endless"); at the next line of calling the recursive function.
if the loop would be endless, this statement wont get print, if otherwise you will see the output
One suggestion is the following:
If you have endless loop then in the graph case you will obtain a path with number of vertices greater than the total number of vertices in the graph. Assuming that the number of vertices in the graph is a global variable (which, I think, is the most common case) you can do a conditional breakpoint in the beginning of the recursion if the depth is already above the total number of vertices.
Here is a link how you do conditional breakpoints for java in Eclipse.
Ok, these are all pretty simple methods, and there are a few of them, so I didnt want to just create multiple questions when they are all the same thing. BigO is my weakness. I just cant figure out how they come up with these answers. Is there anyway you can give me some insight into your thinking for analyzing running times of some of these methods? How do you break it down? How should I think when I see something like these? (specifically the second one, I dont get how thats O(1))
function f1:
loop 3 times
loop n times
Therefore O(3*n) which is effectively O(n).
function f2:
loop 50 times
O(50) is effectively O(1).
We know it will loop 50 times because it will go until n = n - (n / 50) is 0. For this to be true, it must iterate 50 times (n - (n / 50)*50 = 0).
function f3:
loop n times
loop n times
Therefore O(n^2).
function f4:
recurse n times
You know this because worst case is that n = high - low + 1. Disregard the +1.
That means that n = high - low.
To terminate,
arr[hi] * arr[low] > 10
Assume that this doesn't occur until low is incremented to the highest it can go (high).
This means n = high - 0 and we must recurse up to n times.
function 5:
loops ceil(log_2(n)) times
We know this because of the m/=2.
For example, let n=10. log_2(10) = 3.3, the ceiling of which is 4.
10 / 2 =
5 / 2 =
2.5 / 2 =
1.25 / 2 =
0.75
In total, there are 4 iterations.
You get an n^2 analysis when performing a loop within a loop, such as the third method.
However, the first method doesn't a n^2 timing analysis because the first loop is defined as running three times. This makes the timing for the first one 3n, but we don't care about numbers for Big-O.
The second one, introduces an interesting paradigm, where despite the fact that you have a single loop, the timing analysis is still O(1). This is because if you were to chart the timing it takes to perform this method, it wouldn't behave as O(n) for smaller numbers. For larger numbers it becomes obvious.
For the fourth method, you have an O(n) timing because you're recursive function call is passing lo + 1. This is similar to if you were using a for loop and incrementing with lo++/++lo.
The last one has a O(log n) timing because your dividing your variable by two. Just remember than anything that reminds you of a binary search will have a log n timing.
There is also another trick to timing analysis. Say you had a loop within a loop, and within each of the two loops you were reading lines from a file or popping of elements from a stack. This actually would only be a O(n) method, because a file only has a certain number of lines you can read, and a stack only has a certain number of elements you can pop off.
The general idea of big-O notation is this: it gives a rough answer to the question "If you're given a set of N items, and you have to perform some operation repeatedly on these items, how many times will you need to perform this operation?" I say a rough answer, because it (most of the time) doesn't give a precise answer of "5*N+35", but just "N". It's like a ballpark. You don't really care about the precise answer, you just want to know how bad it will get when N gets large. So answers like O(N), O(N*N), O(logN) and O(N!) are typical, because they each represent sort of a "class" of answers, which you can compare to each other. An algorithm with O(N) will perform way better than an algorithm with O(N*N) when N gets large enough, it doesn't matter how lengthy the operation is itself.
So I break it down thus: First identify what the N will be. In the examples above it's pretty obvious - it's the size of the input array, because that determines how many times we will loop. Sometimes it's not so obvious, and sometimes you have multiple input data, so instead of just N you also get M and other letters (and then the answer is something like O(N*M*M)).
Then, when I have my N figured out, I try to identify the loop which depends on N. Actually, these two things often get identified together, as they are pretty much tied together.
And, lastly of course, I have to figure out how many iterations the program will make depending on N. And to make it easier, I don't really try to count them, just try to recognize the typical answers - O(1), O(N), O(N*N), O(logN), O(N!) or perhaps some other power of N. The O(N!) is actually pretty rare, because it's so inefficient, that implementing it would be pointless.
If you get an answer of something like N*N+N+1, then just discard the smaller ones, because, again, when N gets large, the others don't matter anymore. And ignore if the operation is repeated some fixed number of times. O(5*N) is the same as O(N), because it's the ballpark we're looking for.
Added: As asked in the comments, here are the analysis of the first two methods:
The first one is easy. There are only two loops, the inner one is O(N), and the outer one just repeats that 3 times. So it's still O(N). (Remember - O(3N) = O(N)).
The second one is tricky. I'm not really sure about it. After looking at it for a while I understood why it loops at most only 50 times. Since this is not dependant on N at all, it counts as O(1). However, if you were to pass it, say, an array of only 10 items, all positive, it would go into an infinite loop. That's O(∞), I guess. So which one is it? I don't know...
I don't think there's a formal way of determining the big-O number for an algorithm. It's like the halting problem. In fact, come to think of it, if you could universally determine the big-O for a piece of code, you could also determine if it ever halts or not, thus contradicting the halting problem. But that's just my musings.
Typically I just go by... dunno, sort of a "gut feeling". Once you "get" what the Big-O represents, it becomes pretty intuitive. But for complicated algorithms it's not always possible to determine. Take Quicksort for example. On average it's O(N*logN), but depending on the data it can degrade to O(N*N). The questions you'll get on the test though should have clear answers.
The second one is 50 because big O is a function of the length of the input. That is if the input size changes from 1 million to 1 billion, the runtime should increase by 1000 if the function is O(N) and 1 million if it's O(n^2). However the second function runs in time 50 regardless of the input length, so it's O(1). Technically it would be O(50) but constants don't matter for big O.