Transforming while/do/for/foreach-Loops into Recursive Methods

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive method to automatically transform all common loop types in Java into equivalent recursive methods, aiding developers in debugging and code analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, general transformation approach for converting various loop constructs into recursion in Java, filling a gap in existing tools.

Findings

Transformation handles all loop types in Java

Method preserves the original loop semantics

Applicable to other languages with iteration and recursion

Abstract

In software engineering, taking a good election between recursion and iteration is essential because their efficiency and maintenance are different. In fact, developers often need to transform iteration into recursion (e.g., in debugging, to decompose the call graph into iterations); thus, it is quite surprising that there does not exist a public transformation from loops to recursion that handles all kinds of loops. This article describes a transformation able to transform iterative loops into equivalent recursive methods. The transformation is described for the programming language Java, but it is general enough as to be adapted to many other languages that allow iteration and recursion. We describe the changes needed to transform loops of types while/do/for/foreach into recursion. Each kind of loop requires a particular treatment that is described and exemplified.