If it's appropriate to the situation, and if the compiler isn't doing this for you already, you could always go in and hack the IL such that the recursive solution implements a tail call methodology. C# has no way to do so (and honestly this should be done by the compiler) but a tail call in a strategic place would accomplish the same thing and minimize redundant stack frames.
But this can't be done in all recursive scenarios, obviously, as a tail call is only appropriate if the current method is returning the unmodified return value of the method it's calling. Has anyone checked to find out whether this situation is optimized by VS.Net? I would imagine it was, but I've never bothered to check. -----Original Message----- From: The DOTNET list will be retired 7/1/02 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of franklin gray Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 11:47 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: recursive stack trace thanks all. -----Original Message----- From: Murphy, James [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 11:17 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [DOTNET] recursive stack trace > -----Original Message----- > From: franklin gray [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 12:14 PM > I have a recursive function that calls itself many times. If > an error occurs, I notice that the call stack is very large. > > Two questions: > > 1) Will this stack overflow? Yes but the recursive function has to be called many many times - like an infinite loop kind of many. I don't have any feel for the actual number of calls this would take since it depends on the method you are calling and the amount of stack space it requires. If you get close to this limit its most likely a bug. > 2) Is there a way to clear the stack after each call? I doubt you wan to do that! The stack info contains the critical data required to unwind the stack after recursion stops. Instead of using recursion you can do the same thing with a loop and a stack data structure. At each iteration instead of recursing push the iteration data onto a the top of a stack data structure (or the end of an ArrayList lets say). Jim Murphy http://www.ironringsoftware.com You can read messages from the DOTNET archive, unsubscribe from DOTNET, or subscribe to other DevelopMentor lists at http://discuss.develop.com. You can read messages from the DOTNET archive, unsubscribe from DOTNET, or subscribe to other DevelopMentor lists at http://discuss.develop.com. You can read messages from the DOTNET archive, unsubscribe from DOTNET, or subscribe to other DevelopMentor lists at http://discuss.develop.com.
