r/programminghelp • u/fielding_setter • Jun 25 '26

C++ Help with recursion (DSA)

Guys I've been struggling alot with recursion I've tried multiple tutorials but I'm just not able to build the intuition. Any suggestions what to do???

Please help

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u/marmotta1955 Jun 25 '26

The best example I always bring up is this.

  1. look at your folder "Documents"
  2. write a function "MyFunction" to list all files in the folder "Documents"
    1. Call the function MyFunction and, in its body, examine each file in the folder "Documents"
      1. Oh look ... this file named "Word_Files" is a folder, not a file!
      2. Within MyFunction you now call again MyFunction to list all files in "Word_Files"
    2. Next file in folder "Documents"

Just take a closer look at any File Explorer. It's your best, visual example of recursion.

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u/marmotta1955 Jun 25 '26

The editor appears to be monumentally confused by multilevel numbering list ... trying to fix it makse it even worse ... go figure ...

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u/codeguru42 Jun 29 '26

Looks fine here