How to print 1 to n using recursion in Python

Overview

Recursion is a very common concept in all programming languages. It means a function can call itself repeatedly until it finds a terminating condition.

In this shot, we’ll see how to print 1 to n using recursion.

Algorithm

Let’s go through the approach to solving this problem first.

  • We define a function that accepts a number n.
  • We recursively call the function and print the value of n, until the value of n is greater than 0.

Example

The code snippet below demonstrates how to print 1 to n using recursion.

# python3 program to print 1 to n using recursion
def printNumber(n):
  # check if n is greater than 0
  if n > 0:
    # recursively call the printNumber function
    printNumber(n - 1)
    # print n
    print(n, end = ' ')
# declare the value of n
n = 50
# call the printNumber function
printNumber(n)

Explanation

  • Line 3: We define a function printNumber() that accepts a parameter n.
  • Line 5: We check if the value of n is greater than 0.
  • Lines 7–9: If the above condition is true, we recursively call the function printNumber() with n - 1, and print the value of n on the console. We use the end attribute in print() function to format the output.
  • Line 12: We declare and initialize a variable n.
  • Line 14: We call the function printNumber() and pass n as an argument.

Output

In the output, we can see all the numbers between 1 and n are separated by spaces.

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