Recursion and static variables [duplicate]

Answer 1

In the context of the question being about recursion, it will print out "000" (I don't know why the answer shows 4 zeros because with '--i' decrement happens before assignment). If you unroll the calls you get:

if (--i) { //i == 3
    if (--i) { //i == 2
        if (--i) { //i == 1
            if (--i) { //i == 0
                // rest does not get evaluated since the condition is false
            }
            printf("%d", i); // i is 0 now
        }
        printf("%d", i); //i is still 0
    }
    printf("%d", i); //i is still 0
}

However like most have mentioned this code sucks and I would advise you never consider this level of sloppiness for any software you write.