Recursion is a process by which a function calls itself repeatedly till it falls under the base condition and our motive is achieved.
To solve any problem using recursion, we should simply follow the below steps:
- Assume the smaller problem from the problem which is similar to the bigger/original problem.
- Decide the answer to the smallest valid input or smallest invalid input which would act as our base condition.
- Approach the solution and link the answer to the smaller problem given by recursive function to find the answer to the bigger/original problem using it.
Example:
Input: 14689 Output: 98641 Input: 7654321 Output: 1234567
Approach 1:
- In this approach, we can simply print the unit digit of a number.
- And then call the recursive function for the number after removing this unit digit( number/10)
- And this process continues till the number is reduced to a single-digit number.
Example:
num = 82695 reverse(82695) | |__print(5) reverse(8269) | |__print(9) reverse(826) | |__print(6) reverse(82) | |__print(2) reverse(8) | |__print(8) return
Java
// Java program to reverse // an integer recursively class GFG { // Recursive function to print // the number in reversed form public static void Reverse( int num) { // base condition to end recursive calls if (num < 10 ) { System.out.println(num); return ; } else { // print the unit digit of the given number System.out.print(num % 10 ); // calling function for remaining number other // than unit digit Reverse(num / 10 ); } } // driver code public static void main(String args[]) { // number to be reversed int num = 98765 ; System.out.print( "Reversed Number: " ); // calling recursive function // to print the number in // reversed form Reverse(num); } } |
Reversed Number: 56789
Approach 2:
- In this approach, we can simply maintain a variable in which we can store the number reversed till now.
- We can do this by extracting a unit digit from the number and then adding this extracted integer into the reversed number
- But the key factor here is that we have to multiply the reversed number by 10 before adding this extracted number to the reversed number.
Example:
num = 48291 ans = 0 -> variable to store reversed number How this works: reverse(num) | |__ temp = num % 10 -> extracting unit digit from nnumber ans = ans*10 + temp -> adding temp at unit position in reversed number reverse(num/10) -> calling function for remaing number Implementation: reverse(48291) | |__ temp=1 ans= 0*10 + 1 --> ans=1 reverse(4829) | |__ temp=9 ans= 1*10 + 9 --> ans=19 reverse(482) | |__ temp= 2 ans= 19*10 +2 --> ans=192 reverse(48) | |__ temp=8 ans=192*10 + 8 --> ans=1928 reverse(4) | |__ temp=4 ans=1928*10 +4 --> ans=19284 reverse(0) | |__ return ans
Java
// Java program to reverse an integer recursively class GFG { // Variable to store reversed // number after every // recursive call static int ans = 0 ; static int Reverse( int var) { // base condition to end the // recursive calling of function if (var == 0 ) { // We have reversed the // complete number and // stored in ans variable return ans; } if (var > 0 ) { // temp varibale to store the digit at unit // place in the number int temp = var % 10 ; // Add this temp varibale in the ans variable // which stores the number reversed till now ans = ans * 10 + temp; // recursive calling of function to reverse the // remaining number Reverse(var / 10 ); } // returning final answer when the number is // reversed completely return ans; } public static void main(String[] args) { // Number to be reversed int var = 98765 ; // Variable to store reversed number returned by // reverse function int rev; // Calling reverse function and storing the return // value in rev variable rev = Reverse(var); // Printing the Reversed Number System.out.println( "Reversed number: " + rev); } } |
Reversed number: 56789
Note: Java does not throw an exception when an overflow occurs so a problem of overflow might occur if the reversed number is greater than Integer.MAX_VALUE (2147483647) in method 2 but there will be no such problem in method 1.
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