Limiting recursive stack

Hello,
I have a recursive function and need to put a limit on the stack it can build up (ie. how many times it can call itself). I have two questions.

A. What is a good limit that will work on most machines? Is ten fine?

B. What is a good way of applying the limit? At first I thought I would just use a global or static variable and increment it as I go. The problem with this is how to initialize it. There is obvious problems with initializing it inside the function and I don't want to have to set it before I call the function each time. Is there any neat ways around this?

Thanks heaps!

The best way would be to use a static variable. You should just add a parameter to your function that tells when it is initialized.

Example

Code:

---


int recursive(int s, int init) {
    static int iterations;
    if(init == -1)
      iterations = 10;

    if(iterations--);
        recursive(s, 0);
}

---

Thanks mate!
That was simple and quick!