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Re: Re: why no result & no error from this recursion

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg82490] Re: [mg82450] Re: why no result & no error from this recursion
• From: Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu>
• Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 05:37:40 -0400 (EDT)
• Organization: Mathematics & Statistics, Univ. of Mass./Amherst
• References: <ff9t3q$6bp$1@smc.vnet.net> <200710200958.FAA28982@smc.vnet.net>
• Reply-to: murray at math.umass.edu

Yes, and it suddenly quits the kernel -- the command line window that 
opened when I started the kernel disappears.

Jon Harrop wrote:
> 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.
> 
> Have you tried running this from the command line?
> 
> $ MathKernel
> Mathematica 5.1 for Linux x86 (64 bit)
> Copyright 1988-2004 Wolfram Research, Inc.
>  -- Motif graphics initialized --
> 
> In[1]:= Block[{$RecursionLimit=50002}, (If[#<1, "", "." <> #0[# - 1]] &
> [50000]]
> Segmentation fault
> 

-- 
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:
  • Re: why no result & no error from this recursion
    • From: Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com>