Recursive functions
In Chapter 5, Introducing Functional Programming, we explored the concept of recursive functions within the context of functional programming. A recursive function is one that calls itself, either directly or indirectly, to solve a problem by breaking it down into smaller instances of the same problem.
Certain types of problems lend themselves to elegant solutions using recursive functions. However, it’s crucial to note that every function call consumes stack space, and if the function is deeply nested, it may lead to a StackOverflowError. To address this concern, Kotlin offers an optimization called tailrec, which instructs the compiler to use constant stack space instead of growing the stack with each recursive call.
It’s important to acknowledge the limitation of tailrec: for a function to benefit from tail recursion optimization, it must call itself as the last operation in its body. This ensures that the result of the recursive call is...
