C++ Primer Plus

Recursion with Multiple Recursive Calls

Recursion is particularly useful for situations that call for repeatedly subdividing a task into two smaller, similar tasks. For example, consider this approach to drawing a ruler. Mark the two ends, locate the midpoint, and mark it. Then apply this same procedure to the left half of the ruler and then to the right half. If you want more subdivisions, apply the same procedure to each of the current subdivisions. This recursive approach is sometimes called the divide-and-conquer strategy. Listing 7.17 illustrates this approach, with the recursive function subdivide(). It uses a string initially filled with spaces except for a | character at each end. The main program uses a loop to call the subdivide()