Java Programming by Pearson

Functions in Java • 151

grows upward from max_limit to 1. Each new item ‘pushed’ in the stack takes its place above previously

entered item. The items are ‘popped’ out in the reverse order in which they were entered, i.e., the last item

is popped out fi rst. This being the main reason that they are called LIFO (last in fi rst out). This process

is called winding in the recursion context. When recursion is stopped in the above program and when n

becomes 1 and the function returns the value 1, all the function calls saved inside the stack are popped out

from the stack in the reverse order and get executed, i.e., fact (1) returns to fact(2), fact(2) ...