Recursive string reversal

I am trying to reverse a string using head() (first letter of a string) and tail() (all letters after the head) functions from a class I wrote. Everything is working alright except my output's not quite how I wanted it. For example, I input abcde, I should get edcba but this is what I get: edecdebcdea. as you can see it reverses it but still takes in all letters after the head (except for the original head):
E De Cde Bcd de A. I'm new to recursion so I find this very confusing, any help would be appreciated. Thanks

example output:

Code:

---

Enter a string:
abcde
x: abcde

x: bcde

x: cde

x: de

x: e

x:

mystring: edecdebcdea

---

Here's the recursive function, I'm pretty sure the problem's somewhere in here:

Code:

---


strings reverse(strings x)
    {
    cout<< "x: " <<x<<endl;                          //test output
    if (x.stringlength() <= 0)
                {
                return x;
                }
        return reverse(x.tail()) + x.head();        //recursive statement
    }

---

relevant member functions from my class "strings"

Code:

---

/**********************************************************************
        * Default Constructor:
**********************************************************************/
        strings::strings()                                       
                {
                int index = 0;
               
                while (index < 20)
                        {
                        strhead[index] = '\0';
                        strtail[index] = 't';
                        fullstring[index] = 'f';
                        index++;
                        }
                head();
                tail();
                }
               
/**********************************************************************
        * return string head
**********************************************************************/
        char *strings::head()
                {
                strncpy(strhead, fullstring, 1);
                return strhead;
                }
       
        /**********************************************************************
        * Return string tail
**********************************************************************/
        strings strings::tail()
                {
                int index = 0;
                strcpy(strtail, fullstring);
               
                //Test for null terminator
                while (fullstring[index] != '\0')       
                        {
                        strtail[index] = fullstring[index + 1];
                        index++;
                        }
                return strtail;
                }
        /**********************************************************************
        *Return length of string
**********************************************************************/
        int strings::stringlength()
                {
                return strlen(fullstring);
                }
       
        /**********************************************************************
        * Overloaded + operator
        **********************************************************************/
        strings strings::operator +(char right[1])
                {
                strcat(fullstring, right);
                return fullstring;
                }
               
/**********************************************************************
        * Overloaded = operator
        **********************************************************************/
        void strings::operator =(const strings &right)
                {
                strcpy(fullstring, right.fullstring);
                }

---

I tested your reverse algorithm and it works fine. It is therefore likely that it's the rest of your class methods that have problems. (Many of them look downright nonsensical.)

heres one that i have written before:

Code:

---

string reverse(string str, int loopNum=0)
{
        if (loopNum >= str.length())
                return str;
        str.insert(loopNum, str.substr(str.length()-1,1));
        str = str.substr(0,str.length()-1);
        return reverse(str,++loopNum);
}

---

to call the function pass one parameter, such as: cout << reverse("joe");

Why not just use this? :)

Code:

---

void print_reverse(const char *str) {
    if(*str) {
        print_reverse(str+1);
        std::cout << *str;
    }
}

---