C Program to find largest number in array using Recursion

Recursion : :

• Recursion is the process of repeating items in a self-similar way. In programming languages, if a program allows you to call a function inside the same function, then it is called a recursive call of the function.

• The C programming language supports recursion, i.e., a function to call itself. But while using recursion, programmers need to be careful to define an exit condition from the function, otherwise it will go into an infinite loop.

• Recursive functions are very useful to solve many mathematical problems, such as calculating the factorial of a number, generating Fibonacci series, etc.

Problem : :

This C Program prints the largest number in an unsorted array of elements using recursion. The array used here is of type integer.

Here is the source code of the C Program to find largest number in array using Recursion. The C Program is successfully compiled and run on a Linux system. The program output is also shown below.

SOURCE CODE : :

/*  C Program to find largest number in array using Recursion  */

#include <stdio.h>

int large(int[], int, int);

int main()
{
    int size;
    int largest;
    int list[20];
    int i;

    printf("Enter size of the list :: ");
    scanf("%d", &size);
    printf("\nPrinting the list :: \n\n");
    for (i = 0; i < size ; i++)
    {
        list[i] = rand() % size;
        printf("\t%d", list[i]);
    }
    if (size == 0)
    {
        printf("\nEmpty list\n");
    }
    else
    {
        largest = list[0];
        largest = large(list, size - 1, largest);
        printf("\n\nThe largest number in the list is :: %d \n", largest);
    }
    
    return 0;
}
int large(int list[], int size, int largest)
{
    if (size == 1)
        return largest;

    if (size > -1)
    {
        if (list[size] > largest)
        {
            largest = list[size];
        }
        return(largest = large(list, size - 1, largest));
    }
    else
    {
        return largest;
    }
}

Output : :

/*  C Program to find largest number in an array using Recursion  */

Enter size of the list :: 10

Printing the list ::

        1       7       4       0       9       4       8       8       2       4

The largest number in the list is :: 9

Process returned 0

Above is the source code for C Program to find largest number in array using Recursion which is successfully compiled and run on Windows System.The Output of the program is shown above .