Re: [ILUG-BOM] A C factorial Problem

On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, Abhijeet D Mhatre wrote:

I was experimenting with a common c factorial problem when I got a totally unexpected result.

unexpected?

# include <stdio.h> main(){

return type defaults to int

int fact; int x; fact=factorial(6); printf ("%i\n",fff());

so where is the statement that returns an int?

}

int factorial(int x){ if(x>1) return(x*factorial(x-1));

what happens if x<=1? what is the return value then?

}

int fff () { ; }

and what is this supposed to return? the printf will print the return value of this function, but this function doesn't return anything.

Naturally I was expecting 1 as the answer. But I am getting the answer 720 which is 6!.

pray tell us why you expected this so naturally.

Philip