> The expression n-1 + abs(n-1) is always a true value... except in the
> case where n is zero.
Sorry, that's wrong of me, but you know what I mean. *grin*
It zeros out when n-1 <= 0, that is, when n <= 1.
######
>>> def test(n):
... return n-1 + abs(n-1)
...
>>> for x in range(-5, 5):
... print x, test(x)
...
-5 0
-4 0
-3 0
-2 0
-1 0
0 0
1 0
2 2
3 4
4 6
######
So I wasn't paying enough attention.
With this, f(n) now looks something like this:
##############################
def f(n):
if n > 1:
return f(n-1) * n or 1
else:
return 0
##############################
The rest of the analysis follows from the previous email. So it's not
exactly the factorial function, but it's very similar to it. It's off by
a small constant.
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