# Recursion

Chapters 15 and 10.

## Key ideas

### From chapter 15:

A recursive algorithm must obey 3 laws:

1. A recursive algorithm must have a base case.
2. A recursive algorithm must change its state and move toward the base case.
3. A recursive algorithm must call itself, recursively.

todo

## Active learning

### Activity 1

• Add descriptive comments to the commands inside main().
• Try to understand tree(branchLen, t). What is the base case?
• If a call to tree is not at the base case, how does it change its state to move toward the base case?

### Activity 2

• Experiment with convert.py until you fully understand it.
• What is the base case?
• What is the general case?
• Verify that the answers produced for the three test cases are correct.
• Explain why print(convert(100, 1)) produces an error.
• Explain why print(convert(100, 200)) produces an error.
• What is the largest base for which the convert function is correct?
• Uncomment the three statements and supply the missing unconvert function. The function should be recursive and take two parameters. The first parameter is a string representation of a number and the second parameter is the base of the first parameter. The function should calculate and return the base 10 integer equivalent of the first parameter.