Question

public static int exponent(int baseNum) {
    int temp = baseNum *= baseNum;                

        return temp * exponent(baseNum);             
}

Right now the method above does n * n into infinity if I debug it, so it still works but I need this recursive method to stop after 10 times because my instructor requires us to find the exponent given a power of 10.

The method must have only one parameter, here’s some examples of calling exponent:

                System.out.println ("The power of 10 in " + n + " is " + 
                    exponent(n));

So output should be:

The power of 10 in 2 is 1024

OR

The power of 10 in 5 is 9765625

Answer 1

Create an auxiliary method to do the recursion. It should have two arguments: the base and the exponent. Call it with a value of 10 for the exponent and have it recurse with (exponent-1). The base case is exponent == 0, in which case it should return 1. (You can also use exponent == 1 as a base case, in which case it should return the base.)