Thread: 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);
		}

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");