last call optimisation
last call optimisation
(programming)(Or "tail call optimisation") Discarding the
immediate calling context (call stack frame) when the last
action of a function or procedure, A, is to call another
function or procedure, B. B will then return directly to A's
caller, or possibly further up the call stack if the
optimisation has been applied to several consecutive calls.
Last call optimisation allows arbitrarily deep nesting of procedure calls without consuming memory to store useless environments. This is particularly useful in the special case of tail recursion optimisation, where a procedure's last action is to call itself (possibly indirectly).
Last call optimisation allows arbitrarily deep nesting of procedure calls without consuming memory to store useless environments. This is particularly useful in the special case of tail recursion optimisation, where a procedure's last action is to call itself (possibly indirectly).