I used the debugger to examine this code but not understanding a couple areas.

  1. Why does the for loop repeat after it exits to print a new line? If it exits the loop, shouldn’t it be done with it?
  2. Why is n incremented and not i as stated with i++?

int main(void)
{
    int height = get_int("Height: ");

    draw(height);
}

void draw(int n)
{
    if (n <= 0)
    {
        return;
    }

    draw(n - 1);

    for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
    {
        printf("#");
    }
    printf("\n");
}
  • Beej Jorgensen
    1•1 year ago

    Another approach to thinking about it is that draw() does two things. 1) it draws the line that’s 1 shorter than itself, then 2) it draws itself.

    The for loop happens after it draws the line that’s 1 shorter than itself.