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why no result & no error from this recursion

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg82403] why no result & no error from this recursion
• From: Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu>
• Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 05:04:00 -0400 (EDT)
• Organization: Mathematics & Statistics, Univ. of Mass./Amherst
• Reply-to: murray at math.umass.edu

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.

-- 
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

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: why no result & no error from this recursion
    • From: Sseziwa Mukasa <mukasa@jeol.com>