Press "Enter" to skip to content

Eliminating Tail Calls in Python

John Mount shows how you can eliminate tail calls in Python:

I was working through Kyle Miller‘s excellent note: “Tail call recursion in Python”, and decided to experiment with variations of the techniques.

The idea is: one may want to eliminate use of the Python language call-stack in the case of a “tail calls” (a function call where the result is not used by the calling function, but instead immediately returned). Tail call elimination can both speed up programs, and cut down on the overhead of maintaining intermediate stack frames and environments that will never be used again.

Click through for John’s riff on the topic.