Warning: recursive definition of name

This occurs when you attempt to assign a variable a value which contains the name of that variable.

> x:= 'x':
x:= x + 1;

Warning, recursive definition of name

Despite the warning, the assignment is performed. But an attempt to evaluate x produces an error:

> x;

Error, too many levels of recursion

To evaluate this, Maple first replaces x by its value . But then must be evaluated, obtaining . The process continues in what would be an infinite loop, except that Maple runs out of stack space and produces the error message.

The construction x:= x+1 would have been legitimate if x had originally been assigned a value (not depending on x itself). Then the x on the right side would have been evaluated first, and the result would be simply to increase the value of x by 1.

> x:= 3:
x:= x+1;

Thus a common case where this warning arises is when you attempt to change the value of a loop variable, but forget to give this variable an initial value.

The warning also does not arise in defining a function. Recursive definitions of functions can be quite legitimate. Of course you should provide some way of avoiding an infinite loop in evaluating the function.

> fact:= t -> t*fact(t-1);

> fact(0):= 1:

> fact(10);

Maple Advisor Database R. Israel, 1997