C Program To Print Natural Numbers using Recursion

Lets write a C program to print/display natural numbers from 1 to user entered limit, using recursive function calls.

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Video Tutorial: C Program To Print Natural Numbers from 1 To N using Recursion

Source Code: C Program To Print Natural Numbers using Recursion

#include<stdio.h>

void display(int);

int main()
{
    int limit;

    printf("Enter the number of terms to be printed\n");
    scanf("%d", &limit);

    printf("\nNatural Numbers from 1 To %d are:", limit);
    display(limit);

    return 0;
}

void display(int num)
{
    if(num)
        display(num-1);
    else
        return;

    printf("\n%d\n", num);
}

Output:
Enter the number of terms to be printed
14

Natural Numbers from 1 To 14 are:
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Logic To Print Natural Numbers using Recursion

We ask the user to input the limit or the number of terms of natural numbers to be printed. We store that value inside variable limit. We pass this value to a function called display().

Inside display() function
We check if number is not zero, in that case we call the same function display() recursively and pass (num-1) to it. In the else block we write the base condition, that is, return the control back to the calling function if num is 0.

This prints the natural numbers from 1 to user input limit.

Example:

If limit = 5. We copy the value of limit to num. So num = 5.

Value Returning – Control Shifting back.

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