C recursive function won't return true

Question

I have a search function which employs recursion to perform a binary search of an array, values[], for a value:

int recurseSearch(int v         


        

Answer 1

I have not looked carefully at your code so there might be other bugs in it, but it sounds like you want the return value from the deepest recursive call to be passed up the stack all the way to the caller. In that case, you would remove the return 3; and simply return the value of each the recursive call you are making:

int recurseSearch(int value, int values[], int min, int max) {

    if (value > values[max] || min > max) return 1;

    int midpoint = (max+min)/2;

    if (values[midpoint] > value)
        //search in left
        return recurseSearch(value, values, min, midpoint);

    else if (values[midpoint] < value)
        //search in right
        return recurseSearch(value, values, midpoint, max);

    else if (values[midpoint] == value)
        return 0;

    else 
        return 2;
}

The way you originally wrote your code, the return values from the recursive calls were being ignored entirely, and the return 3; statement would be executed instead.