22.3. Sets

[Page 650]

Chapter Summary

• A recursive method is a method that invokes itself directly or indirectly. For a recursive method to terminate, there must be one or more base cases.

• Recursion is an alternative form of program control. It is essentially repetition without a loop control. It can be used to specify simple, clear solutions for inherently recursive problems that would otherwise be difficult to solve.

• Sometimes the original method needs to be modified to receive additional parameters in order to be invoked recursively. A recursive helper method can be declared for this purpose.

• Recursion bears substantial overhead. Each time the program calls a method, the system must assign space for all of the method's local variables and parameters. This can consume considerable memory and requires extra time to manage the additional space.