Recursion in c++ Factorial Program

Question

hello i have this piece of code that i coded based on some other recursion and factorial programs but my problem is that i am really confused as to how it stored the value a

Answer 1

A recursive function breaks a big problem down into smaller cases.

Going over your program:

call factorialfinder with 5, result is stored as 5 * factorialfinder(4)

call factorialfinder with 4, result is stored as 5 * 4 * factorialfinder(3)

call factorialfinder with 3, result is stored as 5 * 4 * 3 * factorialfinder(2)

call factorialfinder with 2, result is stored as 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * factorialfinder(1)

call factorialfinder with 1, result is stored as 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1

in essence it combines the result of a stack of calls to factorialfinder until you hit your base case, in this case x = 1.