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If supported by the language, a callable may call itself, causing its execution to suspend while another ''nested'' execution of the same callable executes. [[Recursion]] is a useful means to simplify some complex algorithms and break down complex problems. Recursive languages provide a new copy of local variables on each call. If the programmer desires the recursive callable to use the same variables instead of using locals, they typically declare them in a shared context such static or global.
Languages going back to [[ALGOL]], [[PL/I]] and [[C (programming language)|C]] and modern languages, almost invariably use a call stack, usually supported by the instruction sets to provide an activation record for each call. That way, a nested call can modify its local variables without
Recursion allows direct implementation of functionality defined by [[mathematical induction]] and recursive [[divide and conquer algorithm]]s. Here is an example of a recursive function in C/C++ to find [[Fibonacci]] numbers:
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