Are recursive methods always better than iterative methods in Java? [closed]

Answer 1

Usually recursive methods demands a few lines of code but a deeply thought about your algorithm. If you make a logical mistake, you'll probably obtain a StackOverflowError.

Here follows 2 programming examples for factorial:

Iteractive:

public int calculateIteractiveFactorial(int n) {
    // Base case
    if (n == 1) {
        return 1;
    }
    int factorial = 1;
    for (int i = 1; i <= n; i++) {
        factorial = factorial * i;
    }
    return factorial;
}

Recursive:

public int calculateRecursiveFactorial(int n) {
    // Base case
    if (n == 1) {
        return 1;
    }
    return n * calculateRecursiveFactorial(n - 1);
}

It's always good to reflect about different ideas for each proposal, always considering lines of code, complexity, clarity, cohesion, etc.