Are there any examples for a recursive function that calls an other function which calls the first one too ?
Example :
function1()
{
//do something
Top down merge sort can use a pair of mutually recursive functions to alternate the direction of merge based on level of recursion.
For the example code below, a[] is the array to be sorted, b[] is a temporary working array. For a naive implementation of merge sort, each merge operation copies data from a[] to b[], then merges b[] back to a[], or it merges from a[] to b[], then copies from b[] back to a[]. This requires n · ceiling(log2(n)) copy operations. To eliminate the copy operations used for merging, the direction of merge can be alternated based on level of recursion, merge from a[] to b[], merge from b[] to a[], ..., and switch to in place insertion sort for small runs in a[], as insertion sort on small runs is faster than merge sort.
In this example, MergeSortAtoA() and MergeSortAtoB() are the mutually recursive functions.
Example java code:
static final int ISZ = 64; // use insertion sort if size <= ISZ
static void MergeSort(int a[])
{
int n = a.length;
if(n < 2)
return;
int [] b = new int[n];
MergeSortAtoA(a, b, 0, n);
}
static void MergeSortAtoA(int a[], int b[], int ll, int ee)
{
if ((ee - ll) <= ISZ){ // use insertion sort on small runs
InsertionSort(a, ll, ee);
return;
}
int rr = (ll + ee)>>1; // midpoint, start of right half
MergeSortAtoB(a, b, ll, rr);
MergeSortAtoB(a, b, rr, ee);
Merge(b, a, ll, rr, ee); // merge b to a
}
static void MergeSortAtoB(int a[], int b[], int ll, int ee)
{
int rr = (ll + ee)>>1; // midpoint, start of right half
MergeSortAtoA(a, b, ll, rr);
MergeSortAtoA(a, b, rr, ee);
Merge(a, b, ll, rr, ee); // merge a to b
}
static void Merge(int a[], int b[], int ll, int rr, int ee)
{
int o = ll; // b[] index
int l = ll; // a[] left index
int r = rr; // a[] right index
while(true){ // merge data
if(a[l] <= a[r]){ // if a[l] <= a[r]
b[o++] = a[l++]; // copy a[l]
if(l < rr) // if not end of left run
continue; // continue (back to while)
while(r < ee){ // else copy rest of right run
b[o++] = a[r++];
}
break; // and return
} else { // else a[l] > a[r]
b[o++] = a[r++]; // copy a[r]
if(r < ee) // if not end of right run
continue; // continue (back to while)
while(l < rr){ // else copy rest of left run
b[o++] = a[l++];
}
break; // and return
}
}
}
static void InsertionSort(int a[], int ll, int ee)
{
int i, j;
int t;
for (j = ll + 1; j < ee; j++) {
t = a[j];
i = j-1;
while(i >= ll && a[i] > t){
a[i+1] = a[i];
i--;
}
a[i+1] = t;
}
}