Thread: Ask about stack overflow when recursive

I want to find area of contiguous 5 in two dimension array like this

00000000000000000
00000055555500000
00000055055000000
00000000005550000
00000000000000000


Contiguous area of number 1 = 13
I write FindAreaof5 function below and m_tempData(x,y) is data in this array (0 or 5)
I call FindAreaof5 function by this loop

for (y=0; y< height; y++){
for (x=0; x< width; x++){
if (m_tempData(x,y) == 5){
InterestArea = FindAreaof5(x,y);
}
}


////This is FindAreaof5 function//////
long FindAreaof5(int x, int y)
{
m_tempData(x,y) = 0;
count++;
FindAreaof5(x, y-1);
FindAreaof5 (x+1, y-1);
FindAreaof5 (x+1, y);
FindAreaof5 (x+1, y+1);
FindAreaof5 (x, y+1);
FindAreaof5 (x-1, y+1);
FindAreaof5 (x-1, y);
FindAreaof5 (x-1, y-1);
return count;
}


In the above example I can find FindAreaof5 = 13
If FindAreaof5 has small value ,it can find FindAreaof5.
But if FindAreaof5 has large value (more than 12000) , it show message box and tell me there is Stack Overflow error.
I think this error cause by time of resursive is so long. I want to know how to solve this problem. Someone suggest me to extend stacksize or change to non recursive but I do not know how to do that. If you know how to solve my problem, please tell me. Thank you very much.

You need to stop your algorithm from backtracking over where you've been already

FindAreaof5(x, y-1);
...
FindAreaof5 (x, y+1);

Type thing gets you back to where you started, and so the process repeats until you're out of stack

I type FindAreaof5 wrong I want to change to this
long FindAreaof5(int x, int y)
{
if (m_tempData(x,y)==0) return count;
m_tempData(x,y) = 0;
count++;
FindAreaof5(x, y-1);
FindAreaof5 (x+1, y-1);
FindAreaof5 (x+1, y);
FindAreaof5 (x+1, y+1);
FindAreaof5 (x, y+1);
FindAreaof5 (x-1, y+1);
FindAreaof5 (x-1, y);
FindAreaof5 (x-1, y-1);
}