[Algorithm] How should we think about recursion? (Contains two algorithm questions)

0. Statement 🫡

This blog is about the basic way of thinking about recursive algorithms. I learned it from this site. 🧐

1. Start 🤠

1. What’s the simplest possible input?
2. Play around with examples and visualize!
3. Relate hard cases to simpler cases.
4. Generalize the pattern.
5. Write code by combining recursive pattern with the base case.

2. Questions 🤔️

1. Write a function that takes two inputs n and m and outputs the number of unique paths from the top left corner to the bottom right corner of a n x m grid. Constraints you can only move down or right 1 unit at a time.

def grid_paths(n, m):
    if n == 1 or m== 1:
        return 1
    else:
        return grid_paths(n, m - 1) +grid_paths(n - 1, m)

2. Write a function that counts the number of ways you can partition n objects using parts up to m (assuming m > 0)

def count_partitions(n, m):
    if n == 0:
        return 1
    elif m == 0 or n < 0:
        return 0
    else:
        return count_partitions(n - m, m) + count_partitions(n, m - 1)

3. Test

def grid_paths(n, m):
    if n == 1 or m== 1:
        return 1
    else:
        return grid_paths(n, m - 1) +grid_paths(n - 1, m)
        
def count_partitions(n, m):
    if n == 0:
        return 1
    elif m == 0 or n < 0:
        return 0
    else:
        return count_partitions(n - m, m) + count_partitions(n, m - 1)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    print(grid_paths(10, 3))
    print(count_partitions(10, 5))