Question

Consider a situation where you have written two different functions, both of which determine whether a string is a palindrome. The first function is a recursive function that calls itself n/2 times for a string of length n. The second function uses an iterative solution that loops n/2 times for a string of length n. Which of the following statements are true about this situation? a. The iterative solution tends to be a little bit faster than the recursive solution. b. The recursive function is a much faster solution because a recursive call is always faster than iteration in a loop. c. The iterative solution is much faster because performing an operation in a loop is always faster than making a function call. d. The two solutions perform at exactly the same speed.

Answer 1

Number a is the correct answer

Step-by-step explanation:

The iterative solution tends to be a little bit faster than the recursive solution. This is because the recursive function has greater space and time requirements than the iterative function. Each recursive call will create a new stack frame in the memory, which will store the local variables and parameters of the function. This will consume more memory than using a loop variable in the iterative function. Moreover, each recursive call will also incur some overhead for pushing and popping the stack frames, which will take more time than updating a loop variable in the iterative function. Therefore, the iterative solution is more efficient in terms of space and time complexity than the recursive solution. However, the recursive solution may have some advantages in terms of readability and elegance, as it can express the problem in a simpler and more concise way