Re: why no result & no error from this recursion
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg82436] Re: [mg82403] why no result & no error from this recursion
- From: Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu>
- Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2007 05:51:46 -0400 (EDT)
- Organization: Mathematics & Statistics, Univ. of Mass./Amherst
- References: <200710190904.FAA05304@smc.vnet.net> <DB2B10DE-2D39-482A-ACA4-6DDB5CECB1E4@jeol.com>
- Reply-to: murray at math.umass.edu
When the evaluation ended (very quickly, and with no result), the front
end was immediately ready for the next input I typed.
Sseziwa Mukasa wrote:
>
> On Oct 19, 2007, at 5:04 AM, Murray Eisenberg wrote:
>
>> Why does the following recursion produce neither a result nor an error
>> message -- nor a system crash?
>>
>> Block[{$RecursionLimit=50002}, (If[#<1, "", "." <> #0[# - 1]] &)[50000]]
>>
>> I even tried setting $RecursionLimit=Infinity, but no change.
>>
>> I presume this is just bumping up against a hardware/OS limit, so I'm
>> surprised to get no error message and no crash.
>
> My guess is that the front end is having problems formatting 50000 '.'
> for display. I've noticed sometimes that calculations that generate
> long strings on output can appear to have hung but the kernel has not
> crashed and the front end is unresponsive.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ssezi
>
--
Murray Eisenberg murray at math.umass.edu
Mathematics & Statistics Dept.
Lederle Graduate Research Tower phone 413 549-1020 (H)
University of Massachusetts 413 545-2859 (W)
710 North Pleasant Street fax 413 545-1801
Amherst, MA 01003-9305
- References:
- why no result & no error from this recursion
- From: Murray Eisenberg <murray@math.umass.edu>
- why no result & no error from this recursion