[erlang-questions] Recursion in the shell=impossible?

[Matthew Reilly]

It's possible, but ugly. You need to create an anonymous function that 
has an additional argument of type Fun.
You then call this function, passing the function to itself.

Examples speak louder than words:

erl> Fact = fun(N) ->
        F1 = fun
                (0,_F) -> 1;
                (M,F) -> M * F(M-1,F)
        end,
        F1(N,F1)
end.

erl> Fact(5).
120


Circular Function wrote:
> 6> Fac = fun(X) -> N * Fac(N-1).
> * 1: syntax error before: '.'
> 6> Fac = fun(X) -> N * Fac(N - 1).
> * 1: syntax error before: '.'
> 6> Fac = fun(X) -> N * fac(N - 1).
> * 1: syntax error before: '.'
> 6> fac = fun(X) -> N * fac(N - 1).
> * 1: syntax error before: '.'
>
> is it not possible to write recursive functions in the shell?
> i have to do that ina module?
> can i write functiosn any other way than making an anonymous one and 
> assigning it to a variable?
> 6> Sq = fun(X) -> X*X end.
> #Fun<erl_eval..6.13229925>
> 7> Sq(12).
> 144
> 8>
>
>
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