What am I doing wrong with Recursion?

Tell us what’s happening:
Describe your issue in detail here.

   **Your code so far**

function sum(arr, n) {
 // Only change code below this line
let i = 0
let total = 0
if (i > n) {
return;
}
else (i <= n) {
total += arr[i];
i++;
}
 // Only change code above this line
}
   **Your browser information:**

User Agent is: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/96.0.4664.45 Safari/537.36

Challenge: Replace Loops using Recursion

Link to the challenge:

That’s not a recursion?
A recursion is a function that calls itself, but there is no call to “sum()” within the function.

A recursion is a troublesome thing. You cannot declare variables like that because the funciton calls itself and will re-declare the variables in every call with the innitial value.
That ofcourse is problem number 2, but first you actually need to write a recursive call.

I’d recommend taking the example, working to REALLY understand how it works, maybe grab a video on recursion if you still got trouble - only then try writing your own.
Recursions need a whole new level of thinking, as you now have to keep a recursion-stack of several function calls in mind, to understand what is happening.

Thanks for that response! I had another attempt. Could you help me see why my code didn’t work? And in real life is there only one perfect way to code this problem recursively?
I’ve copy-pasted my second attempt below, followed by the actual correct answer.

/* My second attempt

var i = 0
var total = 0

if (i => n) {
  return total;
}
else {
  total = sum(arr, n - 1) + arr[n - 1];
} 

*/

// Correct answer

function sum(arr, n) {
  if(n <= 0) {
    return 0;
  } else {
    return sum(arr, n - 1) + arr[n - 1];
  }
}


  // Only change code above this line


//example call:  sum([1,2,3,4], 4)

I’ve edited your post for readability. When you enter a code block into a forum post, please precede it with a separate line of three backticks and follow it with a separate line of three backticks to make it easier to read.

You can also use the “preformatted text” tool in the editor (</>) to add backticks around text.

See this post to find the backtick on your keyboard.
Note: Backticks (`) are not single quotes (’).

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Your code didn’t work in part because you weren’t returning a number in both cases, only in the base case.

And you were also trying to use local variables to keep track of a running total, which won’t work since each time you call the function recursively those variables get reinitialized.

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Thank you! Now, i’m going to work to comprehend what you just said.

[15 mins later] ‘I get it now.’

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