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What's the difference between recursion and iteration?

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Recursion and Iteration are both used for a similar objective: to execute a sequential set of instructions repeatedly.

However, there are some major differences between them functionally. They are outlined below:

Iteration            drawing            Recursion


Allows the execution of a sequential set of statements repetitively using conditional loops.

There are loops with a control variable that need to be initialized, incremented or decremented and a conditional control statement that continuously gets checked for the termination of execution.

The value of the control variable continuously approaches the value in the conditional statement.

A control variable stores the value, which is then updated, monitored, and compared with the conditional statement.

Infinite loops keep utilizing CPU cycles until we stop their execution manually.

The execution of iteration is comparatively faster.

A statement in the function’s body calls the function itself.

A recursive function must comprise of at least one base case i.e. a condition for termination of execution.


The function keeps on converging to the defined base case as it continuously calls itself.

Stack memory is used to store the current state of the function.

If there is no base case defined, recursion causes a stack overflow error.

The execution of recursion is comparatively slower.

Flowchart of a loop
Flowchart of a loop
Factorial calculation using recursion
Factorial calculation using recursion

RELATED TAGS

recursion
iteration
loops
recursive functions
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