Recursive calls and stack

[Neil Cerutti]

On 2007-02-15, Gabriel Genellina <gagsl-py at yahoo.com.ar> wrote:
>> I'm not sure what you mean. The above support is enough for
>> tail recursion, mutual recursion, and any other tail call to
>> be "optimized."
>
> I only want to say that tail *recursion* can be eliminated
> trivially  transforming the code into a while loop, and that
> can be done by the  programmer, and doesn't require compiler
> support. Head *recursion* can be  eliminated too by using some
> storage as temporary stack, and that doesn't  require external
> support either. Mutual recursion (and generic tail call
> elimination) require some sort of external support: one can't
> eliminate  the call just by transforming the program.

Ah, I see now. Had my blinders on.

-- 
Neil Cerutti
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