Which of the following situations might cause a recursive function to run infinitely?

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

To evaluate when a recursive function might run infinitely, we need to consider how recursion proceeds and termination is achieved.
Option 1: 'No base case or unreachable base case' would indeed lead to infinite recursion, because each call would continue to invoke itself without a condition to stop, so the recursive chain never ends.
Option 2: 'Passing zero as argument' could cause infinite recursion only if the function’s termination depends on the argument value and the zero value does not reach the base case or if the recursive step does not properly reduce toward a base condition. In some designs, zero could be valid and eventually terminate; in others, it could produce infinite recursion. Since this depends on the function’s specific base-case logic, this option is not universally a guaranteed cause of infinite recursion.
Option 3: 'Having a base case' is precisely the mechanism that prevents infinite recursion; it defines a condition under which the function stops calling itself. Therefore, this option cannot cause infinite recursion and is incorrect as a cause.
Option 4: 'Using a return statement' simply returns a value from a function and does not by itself introduce or prevent recursion. Return statements often terminate a particular recursive path, so this option does not describe a cause of infinite recursion.
Option 5: 'Using global variables' does not inherently create infinite recursion; global state might influence behavior, but recursion can still terminate properly with a valid base case. Thus this is not a universal cause of infinite recursion.
Option 6: 'Using iterative loops inside the function' involves a loop, not recursive calls. If a function uses a loop instead of making recursive calls, it is not recursive and cannot infinite-recursively invoke itself due to that loop. Hence, this option does not describe a cause of infinite recursion.

IS 4485-001 Fall 2025 Final Exam Practice 1

Which of the following situations might cause a recursive function to run infinitely?

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