--- title: Do Not Fear Recursion | daily.dev description: Tail recursion allows recursive code to be compiled into iterative-equivalent assembly with no stack growth penalty. Using the GCD algorithm as a concrete... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/do-not-fear-recursion-117klxbfu twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Do Not Fear Recursion | daily.dev og:description: Tail recursion allows recursive code to be compiled into iterative-equivalent assembly with no stack growth penalty. Using the GCD algorithm as a concrete... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/do-not-fear-recursion-117klxbfu og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/117KLXBfU.png og:image:alt: Do Not Fear Recursion og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Do Not Fear Recursion **[Jacek Galowicz](https://daily.dev/sources/galowicz)** · 7 min read · 1 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary Tail recursion allows recursive code to be compiled into iterative-equivalent assembly with no stack growth penalty. Using the GCD algorithm as a concrete example, the post demonstrates that clang++ with -O2 produces identical assembly output for both recursive and iterative implementations. It explains what tail recursion is, how to identify it, how to transform non-tail-recursive functions into tail-recursive ones by accumulating state in parameters, and why this matters for writing clean, readable C++ code without sacrificing performance. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [When compilers surprise you — Matt Godbolt’s blog](https://daily.dev/posts/when-compilers-surprise-you-matt-godbolt-s-blog-3c6va0gvq) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Tail-call optimization in C is relatively recent \[LWN.net\]](https://daily.dev/posts/tail-call-optimization-in-c-is-relatively-recent-lwn-net--a266wrnhm) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Rust should have stable tail calls](https://daily.dev/posts/rust-should-have-stable-tail-calls-6xibbzdnd) · Lobsters · 8 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#algorithms](https://daily.dev/tags/algorithms), [#c++](https://daily.dev/tags/c++), [#recursion](https://daily.dev/tags/recursion), [#compiler-optimization](https://daily.dev/tags/compiler-optimization) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/do-not-fear-recursion-117klxbfu) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Do Not Fear Recursion","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/do-not-fear-recursion-117klxbfu","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/do-not-fear-recursion-117klxbfu"},"datePublished":"2026-04-18T22:20:03.184Z","dateModified":"2026-04-18T22:20:27.533Z","description":"Tail recursion allows recursive code to be compiled into iterative-equivalent assembly with no stack growth penalty. 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