Does JavaScript start a new stack on every recursive call?

Question

I need to perform some recursive operations using JavaScript.

Does JavaScript engine work like Java? For recursion Java starts a new stack on every recursive call. How does JavaScript handle this?

rel http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3660577/are-any-javascript-engines-tail-call-optimized — georg, Jun 18 '13 at 10:37

jAndy · Answer 1 · 2013-06-18T10:36:47.960

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ECMAscript has no concept of tail optimization ... yet, if that was the question ?

What does tail optimization mean ?

It means that the stack frame is no longer necessary at the point of the recursive call, and therefore may be eliminated

That in turn means, since there is no official specification on that topic, its pretty much up to the interpreter how to handle this. Probably there are some optimizations going on under the hood (V8 ?), but better assume that a JS recursion gets not optimized at all.

edited Jun 18 '13 at 10:36

answered Jun 18 '13 at 10:31

jAndy

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..and downvoting anonymously isn't helpful at all. – jAndy Jun 18 '13 at 10:32
Not sure why this is downvoted, since it is the correct answer. The standard does not make any guarantee one way or the other. – Raymond Chen Jun 18 '13 at 14:09

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 18 '13 at 10:33

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Yes, every recursive call create a new stack entry

answered Jun 18 '13 at 10:33

Arun P Johny

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in javascript ? and in all browser ?. – Yogesh Prajapati Jun 18 '13 at 10:34

Does JavaScript start a new stack on every recursive call?

2 Answers2