Tutorials References Exercises Videos Menu
Create Website Get Certified Upgrade
HTML CSS JAVASCRIPT SQL PYTHON JAVA PHP BOOTSTRAP HOW TO W3.CSS C C++ C# REACT R JQUERY DJANGO TYPESCRIPT NODEJS MYSQL

Python Tutorial

Python HOME Python Intro Python Get Started Python Syntax Python Comments Python Variables
Python Variables Variable Names Assign Multiple Values Output Variables Global Variables Variable Exercises
Python Data Types Python Numbers Python Casting Python Strings
Python Strings Slicing Strings Modify Strings Concatenate Strings Format Strings Escape Characters String Methods String Exercises
Python Booleans Python Operators Python Lists
Python Lists Access List Items Change List Items Add List Items Remove List Items Loop Lists List Comprehension Sort Lists Copy Lists Join Lists List Methods List Exercises
Python Tuples
Python Tuples Access Tuples Update Tuples Unpack Tuples Loop Tuples Join Tuples Tuple Methods Tuple Exercises
Python Sets
Python Sets Access Set Items Add Set Items Remove Set Items Loop Sets Join Sets Set Methods Set Exercises
Python Dictionaries
Python Dictionaries Access Items Change Items Add Items Remove Items Loop Dictionaries Copy Dictionaries Nested Dictionaries Dictionary Methods Dictionary Exercise
Python If...Else Python While Loops Python For Loops Python Functions Python Lambda Python Arrays Python Classes/Objects Python Inheritance Python Iterators Python Scope Python Modules Python Dates Python Math Python JSON Python RegEx Python PIP Python Try...Except Python User Input Python String Formatting

File Handling

Python File Handling Python Read Files Python Write/Create Files Python Delete Files

Python Modules

NumPy Tutorial Pandas Tutorial SciPy Tutorial Django Tutorial

Python Matplotlib

Matplotlib Intro Matplotlib Get Started Matplotlib Pyplot Matplotlib Plotting Matplotlib Markers Matplotlib Line Matplotlib Labels Matplotlib Grid Matplotlib Subplot Matplotlib Scatter Matplotlib Bars Matplotlib Histograms Matplotlib Pie Charts

Machine Learning

Getting Started Mean Median Mode Standard Deviation Percentile Data Distribution Normal Data Distribution Scatter Plot Linear Regression Polynomial Regression Multiple Regression Scale Train/Test Decision Tree Confusion Matrix Hierarchical Clustering Logistic Regression Grid Search Categorical Data K-means Bootstrap Aggregation Cross Validation AUC - ROC Curve K-nearest neighbors

Python MySQL

MySQL Get Started MySQL Create Database MySQL Create Table MySQL Insert MySQL Select MySQL Where MySQL Order By MySQL Delete MySQL Drop Table MySQL Update MySQL Limit MySQL Join

Python MongoDB

MongoDB Get Started MongoDB Create Database MongoDB Create Collection MongoDB Insert MongoDB Find MongoDB Query MongoDB Sort MongoDB Delete MongoDB Drop Collection MongoDB Update MongoDB Limit

Python Reference

Python Overview Python Built-in Functions Python String Methods Python List Methods Python Dictionary Methods Python Tuple Methods Python Set Methods Python File Methods Python Keywords Python Exceptions Python Glossary

Module Reference

Random Module Requests Module Statistics Module Math Module cMath Module

Python How To

Remove List Duplicates Reverse a String Add Two Numbers

Python Examples

Python Examples Python Compiler Python Exercises Python Quiz Python Certificate

Python Function Recursion

❮ Python Glossary

Recursion

Python also accepts function recursion, which means a defined function can call itself.

Recursion is a common mathematical and programming concept. It means that a function calls itself. This has the benefit of meaning that you can loop through data to reach a result.

The developer should be very careful with recursion as it can be quite easy to slip into writing a function which never terminates, or one that uses excess amounts of memory or processor power. However, when written correctly recursion can be a very efficient and mathematically-elegant approach to programming.

In this example, tri_recursion() is a function that we have defined to call itself ("recurse"). We use the k variable as the data, which decrements (-1) every time we recurse. The recursion ends when the condition is not greater than 0 (i.e. when it is 0).

To a new developer it can take some time to work out how exactly this works, best way to find out is by testing and modifying it.

Example

Recursion Example

def tri_recursion(k):
  if(k>0):
    result = k+tri_recursion(k-1)
    print(result)
  else:
    result = 0
  return result

print("\n\nRecursion Example Results")
tri_recursion(6)
Try it Yourself »

Related Pages

Python Functions Tutorial Function Call a Function Function Arguments *args Keyword Arguments **kwargs Default Parameter Value Passing a List as an Argument Function Return Value The pass Statement i Functions
❮ Python Glossary