Question

Im trying to write a recursive function which returns the factorial of a number. If the number is 0 or negative then it should return 0.
However everytime i test it, it always returns 0, can anyone shed some light on this please?

int factorial( int integer)
{
    if( integer <= 0)
    {
        return 0;
    }

    else

        return integer* (factorial(integer-1));

} 

Answer 1

As it keeps calling itself with integer – 1, it will eventually call itself with 0, and then you will have a call like this:

return integer * (factorial(0))

which will resolve to

return integer * 0

which is 0