[ILUG-BOM] A C factorial Problem

HI friends I was experimenting with a common c factorial problem when I got a totally unexpected result.

here is the program

# include <stdio.h> main(){ int fact; int x; fact=factorial(6); printf ("%i\n",fff()); }

int factorial(int x){ if(x>1) return(x*factorial(x-1)); }

int fff () { ; }

Naturally I was expecting 1 as the answer. But I am getting the answer 720 which is 6!.

If I comment the 5th line fact=factorial(6); I am getting the expected result "1".

The normal explanation for this is memory leak. Can anyone please tell me what is happening and are you too getting the same result.

I am using redhat linux 7.3 with gcc 2.96

regards Abhijeet D Mhatre