recursion problem

[wreck99]

I have a simple program using recursion function.

#include <iostream>
void myFunction(int);
using namespace std;
int main() {
   myFunction(4);
   return 0;
}

void myFunction( int counter)
{
if(counter == 0)
     return;
else
       {
       cout<<"Before \n";
       cout <<counter<<endl;
       myFunction(--counter);
       cout<<"After\n";
       return;
       }
}

The output is this

Before
4
Before
3
Before
2
Before
1
After
After
After
After

My doubt is why does the cout<<"After\n"; gets displayed 4 times.I am assuming that the control is out of the loop and cout<<"After\n"; can only be displayed once.I am new to recursion and also confused.
Thank you for reading.

[Calcushtag]

look at Line 18: cout<<"After\n";
It is part of myFunction. so for each call of myFunction it should be execute.

how the code above works:
0: myFunction(4) called for first time by main function
1: first-call runs to line 17 where it calls anoter myFunction and waits for cpu. it calls myFunction(3)
2: second-call runs to line 17 where it calls anoter myFunction and waits for cpu. It calls myFunction(2)
3: third-call runs to line 17 where it calls anoter myFunction and waits for cpu. It calls myfunc(1)
4:forth-call runs to line 17 where it calls anoter myFunction and waits for cpu. it calls myfunc(0)
5: fifth-call terminate at beginning
6: forth-call receives cpu and continues to end (include line 18)
7: third-call receives cpu and continues to end (include line 18)
8: socond-call receives cpu and continues to end (include line 18)
9: first-call receives cpu and continues to end (include line 18)

[wreck99]

thanks very much calcushtag,I never realized there would be a queue of function calls in recursion thanks again

also tried

cout<<"After";
cout<<counter;

to understand better

[doug4]

I never realized there would be a queue of function calls in recursion

I'm glad you learned this. It's actually a stack of function calls, not a queue. And this stack of function calls is actually the whole point of recursion.

[cire]

Recursion does not always require a stack of function calls and it is obviously not the whole point of recursion. It's just another way of looping that is very convenient for some use cases.