Are there any example of Mutual recursion?
Mutual recursion is common in code that parses mathematical expressions (and other grammars). A recursive descent parser based on the grammar below will naturally contain mutual recursion: expression-terms-term-factor-primary-expression
.
expression
+ terms
- terms
terms
terms
term + terms
term - terms
term
factor
factor * term
factor / term
factor
primary
primary ^ factor
primary
( expression )
number
name
name ( expression )
The proper term for this is Mutual Recursion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_recursion
There's an example on that page, I'll reproduce here in Java:
boolean even( int number )
{
if( number == 0 )
return true;
else
return odd(abs(number)-1)
}
boolean odd( int number )
{
if( number == 0 )
return false;
else
return even(abs(number)-1);
}
Where abs( n ) means return the absolute value of a number.
Clearly this is not efficient, just to demonstrate a point.