Java Recursion — Free Java Tutorial

TL;DR: Learn Java Recursion in Java with a free, beginner-friendly tutorial, examples and practice for Indian students on Syllab.in.

Java Recursion in Java

Recursion is a technique where a method calls itself to solve a smaller version of the same problem. Every recursive solution has: a base case (stops recursion) and a recursive case (reduces the problem).

The call stack stores each method invocation. Deep recursion can cause StackOverflowError. Iterative solutions use O(1) stack space; recursion uses O(n).

Many problems have elegant recursive solutions: factorial, Fibonacci, tree traversal, merge sort, binary search, Tower of Hanoi.

Memoization (caching results of sub-problems) converts naive exponential recursion to linear time — critical for Fibonacci and similar problems.

// Pattern: base case + recursive case
returnType method(params) {
    if (baseCase) return baseResult;    // STOP
    return method(smallerProblem);      // RECURSE
}

// Factorial
int factorial(int n) {
    if (n <= 1) return 1;
    return n * factorial(n - 1);
}

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