What distinguishes infinite recursion from an infinite loop in programming?

Infinite recursion and an infinite loop both lead to endless code execution, but they differ in mechanism and consequences:

• Infinite loop — is a loop (for example, while(true)) that never terminates, but does not cause additional memory consumption on each iteration. It runs in the same call stack.

• Infinite recursion — a function calls itself without an exit condition, causing each call to add a new frame to the call stack. Eventually, the stack overflows, and the program crashes with a stack overflow error.

Example of an infinite loop in Python:

while True:
    print("Infinite loop")

Example of infinite recursion in Python:

def recurse():
    recurse()

recurse()

Thus, an infinite loop usually just "hangs," while infinite recursion leads to a crash due to stack overflow.