How to change recursive loop to non recursive loop

How to change recursive loop to non recursive loop
I want to find area of contiguous 5 (5-connected area) in two dimension array like this

00000000000000000
00000055555500000
00000055055000000
00000000005550000
00000000000000000


Contiguous area of number 5 = 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

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

////Below this is FindAreaof5 function//////

code
.................................................. .............
long FindAreaof5(int x, int y)
{
long count ;
if (m_tempData(x,y)==0) return 0;
m_tempData(x,y) = 0;

count = 1 + 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 want to know how to solve this problem. Someone suggest me to change recursive loop to non recursive or use blob coloring but I do not know how to do that. If you know how to solve my problem, please tell me. Thank you very much.

Recursion is very similar to a loop, instead of calling the function again, simply reiterate.

>it show message box and tell me there is Stack Overflow error

Code:

---

count = 1 + 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);

---

Hmm, I wonder why...Each time a function calls itself, completely separate copies of it's variables are popped onto the stack, meaning that something like the above code will fill available stack space pretty quickly. This is the type of situation where an iterative solution is far better than a recursive one.

-Prelude