John Nagle <na...@animats.com> writes: > On 8/20/2010 1:17 PM, John Bokma wrote: >> John Nagle<na...@animats.com> writes: >> >>> Python does not do tail recursion, so using recursion >>> where iteration could do the job is generally a bad idea. Scheme, on >>> the other hand, always does tail recursion where possible. >> >> I think you mean tail recursion optimization / elimination. >> Python does tail recursion: > > Not very well.
Based on your reply that follows, I agree. > def cnt(n) : > if n > 0 : > cnt(n-1) > > > This will work for up to cnt(998), but at cnt(999), CPython > reports "RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded." > > Yes, you can increase the recursion depth, but that case > shouldn't be compiled to recursion at all. I agree: so this means that Python should eliminate / optimize tail recursion. To me, the current value seems a bit low, but I know nothing about Python internals. -- John Bokma j3b Blog: http://johnbokma.com/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/j.j.j.bokma Freelance Perl & Python Development: http://castleamber.com/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
