[Resolved] Recursive Function Help

aaron_karp

Hey guys, I'm trying to convert my recursive function from one that echos out its output to one that buffers the output for later use.

Here's the general structure of the function. I've left out the generic stuff and just left the core of the recursion. What am I missing?

<?PHP
function doSomething($parent, $variable) {

  if ($parent > 0)
    // The twolines below are fake
    $main_output = "something $variable";
    $main_output .= $parent * $variable;
    return $main_output .  doSomething($parent-2, $variable+1); 
  }


}

$total_menu_output = doSomething(10,10);

?>


<HTML>
stuff
<?=$total_main_output?>
</HTML>

But when I spit out the contents of $total_main_output, it contains only a fraction of the code that should be there. I realize that this code doesn't really make sense - I'm just checking if there's some inherent error in the way i've set up the function.

The function worked nicely when I had echo "something $variable" instead of $main_output = "something $variable". But once I added in these new things, the output seems to indicate that only the outermost instance of the function is being captured.

Any thoughts or rewritings or my function would be useful.

-Aaron

onion2k

You'll need to pass $main_output between iterations of the function, and not overwrite it on each pass.

aaron_karp

so, something more along the lines of:

<?PHP

function doSomething($parent, $variable, $main_output) {

$main_output  .= "$variable";

return $main_output .  doSomething($parent-2, $variable+1, $main_output);

}
?>
[code=php]

? Or did I mess that up?

aaron_karp

Is that correct? The thing I wrote above?

tsinka

Hi,

I modified your original code a little bit:

<?PHP
function doSomething($parent, $variable) {
  $main_output = "";

  if ($parent > 0) {
    // The twolines below are fake
    $main_output .= "something $variable ";
    $main_output .= ($parent * $variable)." ";

$main_output .= doSomething($parent-2, $variable+1); 
  } 

  return $main_output;
}

$total_menu_output = doSomething(10,10);

?>

<HTML>
stuff<br>
<?=$total_menu_output?>
</HTML>

Thomas

aaron_karp

Thanks Thomas. That did the trick. =)