What in layman's terms is a Recursive Function using PHP

Question

Can anyone please explain a recursive function to me in PHP (without using Fibonacci) in layman language and using examples? i was looking at an example but the Fibonacci to

Answer 1

Recursion used for Kaprekar's constant

function KaprekarsConstant($num, $count = 1) {
    $input = str_split($num);
    sort($input);

    $ascendingInput  = implode($input);
    $descendingInput = implode(array_reverse($input));

    $result = $ascendingInput > $descendingInput 
        ? $ascendingInput - $descendingInput 
        : $descendingInput - $ascendingInput;

    if ($result != 6174) {
        return KaprekarsConstant(sprintf('%04d', $result), $count + 1);
    }

    return $count;

}

The function keeps calling itself with the result of the calculation until it reaches Kaprekars constant, at which it will return the amount of times the calculations was made.

/edit For anyone that doesn't know Kaprekars Constant, it needs an input of 4 digits with at least two distinct digits.