# Recursion in FreeFem

**URL:** <https://community.freefem.org/t/recursion-in-freefem/313>\
**Category:** General Discussion\
**Created:** [March 27, 2020, 3:37pm UTC](https://community.freefem.org/t/recursion-in-freefem/313 "2020-03-27T15:37:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ancylutis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Ancylutis](https://community.freefem.org/u/Ancylutis)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 3:37pm UTC](https://community.freefem.org/t/recursion-in-freefem/313/1 "2020-03-27T15:37:44Z")

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Hello,

I would like to know if it is possible to do recursive function in FreeFem? Because when I try to do recursion I get “Identifier \<name\_of\_the\_recursive\_function\> does not exist” error.

Thanks in advance for your answer.

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**Author:** ![prj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecae2f/32.png) [@prj](https://community.freefem.org/u/prj)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 4:20pm UTC](https://community.freefem.org/t/recursion-in-freefem/313/2 "2020-03-27T16:20:41Z")

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Sorry, it’s not possible. What would you like to achieve? Maybe there is some other way.

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**Author:** ![Ancylutis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Ancylutis](https://community.freefem.org/u/Ancylutis)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 4:57pm UTC](https://community.freefem.org/t/recursion-in-freefem/313/3 "2020-03-27T16:57:17Z")

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Thank you for your quick answer. I would like to manipulate Binary Tree.

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**Author:** ![prj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecae2f/32.png) [@prj](https://community.freefem.org/u/prj)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 5:01pm UTC](https://community.freefem.org/t/recursion-in-freefem/313/4 "2020-03-27T17:01:09Z")

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What’s your end goal, if I may ask?

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**Author:** ![Ancylutis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Ancylutis](https://community.freefem.org/u/Ancylutis)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2020, 5:08pm UTC](https://community.freefem.org/t/recursion-in-freefem/313/5 "2020-03-27T17:08:06Z")

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I’m working on image compression by using inpainting. I would like to implement the following algorithm for the creation of the inpainting mask (which is characterisitic function) : [BTree algorithm](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Image-compression-with-B-tree-coding-algorithm-by-Galic-Livada/9fc1c30207dbbd2a8dc93b0b9196577f3b50a6e5) (section 3.1).