java - Finding Max value in an array using recursion

Question

For one of the questions i was asked to solve, I found the max value of an array using a for loop, so i tried to find it using recursion and this is what I came up with:

public static int findMax(int[] a, int head, int last) {

    int max = 0;
    if (head == last) {
        return a[head];
    } else if (a[head] < a[last]) {
        return findMax(a, head + 1, last);
    } else {
        return a[head];
    }
}

So it works fine and gets the max value, but my question is : is it ok to have for the base case return a[head] and for the case when the value at the head is > the value at last?

Answer 1

You could just as easily do it with only one counter, just the index of the value you want to compare this time:

public static int findMax(int[] a, int index) {
    if (index > 0) {
        return Math.max(a[index], findMax(a, index-1))
    } else {
        return a[0];
    }
}

This much better shows what is going on, and uses the default "recursion" layout, e.g. with a common base step. Initial call is by doing findMax(a, a.length-1).