How to find the largest element in a list of integers recursively?

Question

I\'m trying to write a function which will recursively find the largest element in a list of integers. I know how to do this in Java, but can\'t understand how to do this at Sca

Answer 1

def max(xs: List[Int]): Int = {
  def _max(xs: List[Int], maxAcc:Int): Int = {
    if ( xs.isEmpty ) 
      maxAcc 
    else 
      _max( xs.tail, Math.max( maxAcc, xs.head ) ) // tail call recursive
  }

  if ( xs.isEmpty ) 
    throw new NoSuchElementException() 
  else 
    _max( xs, Int.MinValue );
}