Change recursive function to iterative

Question

There is a recursive function f() . It is looking at cond and then either returning or executing f() then g() . Consider cond to be an external variable that can be set somewhere else, perhaps in a different thread.

1. If the first five times cond is checked, cond == true , but the sixth time, cond == false , describe the code flow.

2. Because this is recursive, the code could suffer from a stack overflow if cond == true for too long. Fill in the function iterative_f() so that the code flow is identical to the code flow in (1).

    //recursive void f() { if(cond == false) return; f(); g(); } //iterative void iterative_f() { } 

Answer 1

1. Since the cond is false the 6th time, the function will in effect execute 5 times. The result is that function g will be executed 5 times.

2. Now you can write the iterative function as follows:

void iterative_f() 
    {
       while(cond)
       {
          g();
       } 
    }