Recursive function

JavaScript
1

In this example, from a js book, I saw how a recursive function works. My question is, specific for this function, why the author used exponent -1 ?

function power(base, exponent) {
 if (exponent == 0)
  return 1;
 else
  return base * power(base, exponent - 1);
}
console.log(power(2, 3));
2

What that function ends up giving is: return 2 * power(2, 2)
Which becomes: return 2 * 2 * power(2, 1)
And then: return 2 * 2 * 2 * power(2, 0)
Before finally becoming: return 2 * 2 * 2 * 1

That a recursive way to do exponents.

2 Likes
3

Thank you Paul for you answer with details.

4

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