Question

I can’t understand this recursion even though it’s a really simple example. When it goes to power(base, exponent - 1); what is that supposed to do? How are things being multiplied when power keeps getting invoked until exponent equals 0?

function power(base, exponent) {
    if (exponent === 0) {
        return 1;
    } else {
        return base * power(base, exponent - 1);
    }
}

Answer 1

Let’s start from the beginning.

Let’s say you call power(base, 0). Since exponent is 0, the function returns 1.

Now, let’s say you call power(base, 1). Since exponent isn’t 0 this time, the function calls power(base, exponent - 1) and multiplies it by base. (That’s the key here…it takes the result from the recursive call, and adds its own twist.) Since exponent - 1 = 0, and power(base, 0) is 1, the result is effectively base * 1. Read: base.

Now on to power(base, 2). That ends up being base * power(base, 1). And power(base, 1) is base * power(base, 0). End result: base * (base * 1). Read: base squared.

And so on.

In case it wasn’t obvious, by the way, this function will only work with non-negative integer exponents. If exponent is negative, or is even the tiniest bit more or less than a whole number, the function will run “forever”. (In reality, you’ll more than likely cause a stack overflow, once recursion eats up all of your stack.)

You could fix the function for negative powers with some code like

if (exponent < 0) return 1 / power(base, -exponent);

As for non-integers…there’s no good way to solve that other than throwing an exception. Raising a number to a non-integer power makes sense, so you don’t want to just truncate the exponent or otherwise pretend they didn’t try to do it — you’d end up returning the wrong answer.