Problem with the very basics - factorial

[meltorizor]

Hello dear fellows,
i wrote a little program to calculate the factorial of a natural number but i can't get it to return useful values. The error detection (n < 0)is working fine, but the rest isn't and i don't get why. It runs somehow, but not the right way. In addition, i only want one output instead of two. Please don't be scared by the german output, i bet you can understand it nonetheless :)
Please help.

#include <iostream>
#include "stdafx.h"
#include "conio.h"

using namespace std;

int fak(int n) {
	if (n == 0 || n == 1) {
		cout << "Die Fakultaet von " << n << " ist 1 .\n";
	}

	else {
		return	n*(fak(n - 1));
		n--;
	}
}


int main(){ 
	int n;
	cout << "Bitte die zu fakultierende Zahl eingeben!\n";
	cin >> n;

	if (n < 0) {
		cout << "Eingabe ist keine natuerliche Zahl!\n";

	}
	else
		cout << "Die Fakultaet von " << n << " ist " << fak(n) << " .\n";
		_getch();
	return 0;
}

[lastchance]

Your English is better than my German, but nevertheless the word is "factorial", not "faculty".

If n = 0 or n = 1 it still needs to return a value (1), not just pass comment.

Otherwise it just needs to return n*fak(n-1); no decrementing of n (the n-- line) is necessary.
Try

int fak(int n)
{
   if (n == 0 || n == 1) return 1;
   else return n*(fak(n - 1));
}

For the future, you might need to try bigger integers (e.g. unsigned long long). Factorials get very big very quickly.

[meltorizor]

You have been right with the missing return value and the decrementation, now it works perfectly fine. Thanks a lot for the fast answer and the correction in my vocabulary, always appreciated!

The working code if anybody else should search for it.

#include <iostream>
#include "stdafx.h"
#include "conio.h"

using namespace std;

int fak(int n) {
	if (n == 0 || n == 1) {		
		return 1;
	}

	else {
		return	n*(fak(n - 1));		
	}
}


int main(){ 
	int n;
	cout << "Please insert a natural number!\n";
	cin >> n;

	if (n < 0) {
		cout << "Input is not a natural number!\n";

	}
	else
		cout << "The factorial of " << n << " is " << fak(n) << " .\n";
		_getch();
	return 0;
}