7.12.  Pit Falls

Definition 3.3 (n!)

Let n be a natural number.

If n > 1:   n! := (n-1)! * n
If n = 1:   n! := 1

If we want to calculate n!, we can use the following recursive algorithm:

Function n_factorial(n)

What is the result of:

n_factorial(3):    6
n_factorial(10):   3628800
n_factorial(0):    not defined
n_factorial(-1):   not defined

In C:

 1      
 2      int n_factorial(int n)
 3      {
 4          if ( n == 1 )
 5              return (1);
 6          else
 7              return ( n * n_factorial(n -- 1 ) );
 8      }
 9      
10      int main(void)
11      {
12          int input;          /* n            */
13          int result;         /* n!           */
14      
15          printf("n: ");
16          scanf("%d", &input);
17          result = n_factorial(input);
18      
19          printf("n_factorial(%d) = %d\n", input, result );
20      }

Let the program run:

% factorial
n: 6
n_factorial(6) = 720
% factorial
n: 10
n_factorial(10) = 3628800
% factorial
n: 22
n_factorial(22) = -522715136
% factorial
n: 0
Segmentation Fault (core dumped)
%  ls -l core
-rw-r--r--   1 bischof  cs       8443456 Oct 15 11:02 core

Last modified 22/May/97