Recursion

A recursive function is a function that calls itself in its body, either directly or indirectly.

Let's look at the canonical example, factorial.

Factorial, denoted with the ! operator, is defined as:

n! = n * (n-1) * ... * 1

For example, 5! = 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 = 120

The recursive implementation for factorial is as follows:

def factorial(n):
    if n == 0:
        return 1
    return n * factorial(n - 1)

We know from its definition that 0! is 1. Since n == 0 is the smallest number we can compute the factorial of, we use it as our base case. The recursive step also follows from the definition of factorial, i.e., n! = n * (n-1)!.

Recursive functions have three important components:

1. Base case. You can think of the base case as the case of the simplest function input, or as the stopping condition for the recursion.

   In our example, factorial(0) is our base case for the factorial function.

2. Recursive call on a smaller problem. You can think of this step as calling the function on a smaller problem that our current problem depends on. We assume that a recursive call on this smaller problem will give us the expected result; we call this idea the "recursive leap of faith".

   In our example, factorial(n) depends on the smaller problem of factorial(n-1).

3. Solve the larger problem. In step 2, we found the result of a smaller problem. We want to now use that result to figure out what the result of our current problem should be, which is what we want to return from our current function call.

   In our example, we can compute factorial(n) by multiplying the result of our smaller problem factorial(n-1) (which represents (n-1)!) by n (the reasoning being that n! = n * (n-1)!).

The next few questions in lab will have you writing recursive functions. Here are some general tips:

• Paradoxically, to write a recursive function, you must assume that the function is fully functional before you finish writing it; this is called the recursive leap of faith.
• Consider how you can solve the current problem using the solution to a simpler version of the problem. The amount of work done in a recursive function can be deceptively little: remember to take the leap of faith and trust the recursion to solve the slightly smaller problem without worrying about how.
• Think about what the answer would be in the simplest possible case(s). These will be your base cases - the stopping points for your recursive calls. Make sure to consider the possibility that you're missing base cases (this is a common way recursive solutions fail).
• It may help to write an iterative version first.

Lists

A list is a data structure that can store multiple elements. Each element can be of any type, even a list itself. We write a list as a comma-separated list of expressions in square brackets:

>>> list_of_ints = [1, 2, 3, 4]
>>> list_of_bools = [True, True, False, False]
>>> nested_lists = [1, [2, 3], [4, [5]]]

Each element in the list has an index, with the index of the first element starting at 0. We say that lists are therefore "zero-indexed."

With list indexing, we can specify the index of the element we want to retrieve. A negative index represents starting from the end of the list, so the negative index -i is equivalent to the positive index len(lst)-i.

>>> lst = [6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0]
>>> lst[0]
6
>>> lst[3]
3
>>> lst[-1] # Same as lst[6]
0

Sequences

Sequences are ordered collections of values that support element-selection and have length. We've worked with lists, but other Python types are also sequences, including strings.

Let us go through an example of some actions we can do with strings.

>>> x = 'Hello there Oski!'
>>> x
'Hello there Oski!'
>>> len(x)
17
>>> x[6:]
'there Oski!'
>>> x[::-1]
'!iksO ereht olleH'

Since strings are sequences, we can do with strings many of the same things that we can do to lists. We can even loop through a string just like we can with a list:

>>> x = 'I am not Oski.'
>>> vowel_count = 0
>>> for i in range(len(x)):
...     if x[i] in 'aeiou':
...         vowel_count += 1
>>> vowel_count
5

List Slicing

To create a copy of part or all of a list, we can use list slicing. The syntax to slice a list lst is: lst[<start index>:<end index>:<step size>].

This expression evaluates to a new list containing the elements of lst:

• Starting at and including the element at <start index>.
• Up to but not including the element at <end index>.
• With <step size> as the difference between indices of elements to include.

If the start, end, or step size are not explicitly specified, Python has default values for them. A negative step size indicates that we are stepping backwards through a list when including elements.

>>> lst = [6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0]
>>> lst[:3]     # Start index defaults to 0
[6, 5, 4]
>>> lst[3:]     # End index defaults to len(lst)
[3, 2, 1, 0]
>>> lst[:]      # Creates a copy of the list
[6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0]
>>> lst[:] == lst
True
>>> lst[:] is lst
False
>>> lst[::-1]   # Make a reversed copy of the entire list
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
>>> lst[::2]    # Skip every other; step size defaults to 1 otherwise
[6, 4, 2, 0]

List Comprehensions

List comprehensions are a compact and powerful way of creating new lists out of sequences. The general syntax for a list comprehension is the following:

[<expression> for <element> in <sequence> if <conditional>]

where the if <conditional> section is optional.

The syntax is designed to read like English: "Compute the expression for each element in the sequence (if the conditional is true for that element)."

>>> [i**2 for i in [1, 2, 3, 4] if i % 2 == 0]
[4, 16]

This list comprehension will:

• Compute the expression i**2
• For each element i in the sequence [1, 2, 3, 4]
• Where i % 2 == 0 (i is an even number),

and then put the resulting values of the expressions into a new list.

In other words, this list comprehension will create a new list that contains the square of every even element of the original list [1, 2, 3, 4].

We can also rewrite a list comprehension as an equivalent for statement, such as for the example above:

>>> lst = []
>>> for i in [1, 2, 3, 4]:
...     if i % 2 == 0:
...         lst = lst + [i**2]
>>> lst
[4, 16]

Getting Started Videos

These videos may provide some helpful direction for tackling the coding problems on this assignment.

To see these videos, you should be logged into your berkeley.edu email.

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