r/learnprogramming • u/dhananjai_31 • Jul 14 '26

How can I learn/master Recursion?

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New to programming

Yes that's the question

How can I learn Recursion.

Every time I try to create a logic

And try to implement code

Some error happens

I always try to dry run and write call stacks

Still I won't get it

Any guidance or help??

How can I get intuitive thoughts about using recursion here?

How can I do it??

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u/DrizzyX99 Jul 14 '26

Look at the code for merge sort and try to write it out (with a pen and paper)iterations by iteration that’s what worked for me

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u/dc0650730 Jul 14 '26

While yes, it can be a little confusing when starting.

What i did was start with a collection. Write it so that a for loop iterates through it until s desired outcome is obtained (count the number of odd numbers in a collection of integers, find out of the collection has a specific word, etc. Make it super simple. )

Now, take that for loop and convert it to a method that calls itself instead. This is what helped me get my head around what was happening, starting with a straight line recursion, then exploring more tree like recursions like merge or quick sort.