Sudoku
Eric Parry
joan4eric at gmail.com
Fri Mar 29 17:47:31 EDT 2013
On Friday, March 29, 2013 9:15:36 AM UTC+10:30, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 9:11 AM, Eric Parry <joan4eric at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thank you for that explanation.
>
> > No, I do not understand recursion. It is missing from my Python manual. I would be pleased to receive further explanation from anyone.
>
>
>
> If you already know what recursion is, just remember the answer.
>
> Otherwise, find someone who is standing closer to Douglas Hofstadter
>
> than you are; then ask him or her what recursion is.
>
>
>
> :)
>
>
>
> Recursion is a form of self-referential code. Take this simple, and
>
> rather silly, means of calculating the sum of numbers in a list (like
>
> the sum() function):
>
>
>
> # The sum of numbers in an empty list is 0.
>
> # Otherwise it is the first number plus the sum of the rest of the list.
>
> def list_sum(lst):
>
> if not lst: return 0
>
> return lst[0] + list_sum(lst[1:])
>
>
>
> >>> list_sum([1,2,3,4,5,6])
>
> 21
>
>
>
> Note how the function calls itself - but not always. That's critical
>
> to recursion - a termination condition. In this case, it's quite
>
> obvious that the list will eventually have nothing left in it, so the
>
> function will terminate. Sometimes it's less obvious. Sometimes a bug
>
> results in infinite recursion... and:
>
>
>
> RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded in comparison
>
>
>
> Hope that helps!
>
>
>
> ChrisA
Thank you for that example Chris.
That explains why the program keeps running after a solution is found.
Eric
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