Recursion and function inlining

[vitke]

A simple recursive function that computes the factorial of an integer:

int a (int depth)
{
   return depth*a(depth-1);
}

void b ()
{
   std::cout << a(10);
}

Clearly, the first call of a cannot be inlined because it is recursive. However, the second call of a is not recursive. Is the second call inlined? Can one function be sometimes inlined and sometimes not? I'm using gcc 4.6.2.

[kev82]

If you use the -S option to gcc, you can dump the assembly and have a look for yourself. My guess for that case would be no.