How to distinguish between recursive calls and iterative loops in programming?

Recursive calls are when a function calls itself to solve a subproblem, usually with a modified argument, and has a base case to stop. Iterative loops use constructs like for or while to repeat a block of code.

Differences:

• Recursion is suitable for problems that naturally break down into subproblems (e.g., tree traversal).
• Iteration is usually more memory-efficient as it does not require additional stack calls.

Example of factorial:

Recursion:

def factorial(n):
    if n == 0:
        return 1
    else:
        return n * factorial(n-1)

Iteration:

def factorial(n):
    result = 1
    for i in range(1, n+1):
        result *= i
    return result