Test: recurison vs. not (trivial)

What is the cost of a recursive algorithm vs. a non-recursive one?

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Result: Saved

The test labeled "recursive" was the faster by 0.0121 seconds, (1.719% faster)

recursive 100%

non-recursive 98.281%

The recursive test took 0.6928 seconds.
The non-recursive test took 0.7049 seconds.

Nitty-Gritty

Each test case ran 20 random code order iterations consisting of 130,928 loops for a total of 2,618,560 runs.

Line execution difference (0.000005) milliseconds.
Avg difference (0.606) milliseconds per 130,928 loops.
Total difference 12.12 milliseconds for 2,618,560 loops

The iteration variablity for Code 1 was (7.0068) milliseconds and Code 2 was (7.0009) milliseconds. The lower and the closer together there values are the more accurate the results are.

Code

The first test, "non-recursive", was:

/*
function recurse_not($i)
{
	$result = 0;

	while ($i > 0)
	{
		$result += $i;
		$i -= 5;
	}

	return $result;
}
*/

$result = recurse_not(5000);

The second test, "recursive", was:

/*
function recurse_normal($i)
{
	if ($i > 0)
		return $i + recurse_normal($i - 5);
	else
		return 0;
}
*/

$result = recurse_normal(5000);

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