Convert normal recursion to tail recursion

Question

I was wondering if there is some general method to convert a \"normal\" recursion with foo(...) + foo(...) as the last call to a tail-recursion.

For exa

Answer 1

I don't know how theoretical this question is, but a recursive implementation won't be efficient even with tail-recursion. Try computing pascal(30, 60), for example. I don't think you'll get a stack overflow, but be prepared to take a long coffee break.

Instead, consider using a Stream or memoization:

val pascal: Stream[Stream[Long]] = 
  (Stream(1L) 
    #:: (Stream from 1 map { i => 
      // compute row i
      (1L 
        #:: (pascal(i-1) // take the previous row
               sliding 2 // and add adjacent values pairwise
               collect { case Stream(a,b) => a + b }).toStream 
        ++ Stream(1L))
    }))