Summary
In this chapter, we explored two important concepts: iteration and recursion. Beginning with iteration, we examined the role of the List.Transform and List.Accumulate functions. Both perform their tasks on a list with a fixed number of items, like a for loop. While List.Transform serves its purpose for straightforward operations, List.Accumulate is also helpful for scenarios requiring access to the result of earlier iterations.
We then delved into the List.Generate function, which allows you to dynamically create lists based on custom conditions and logic, similar to a while loop. The function has good performance, provides an easy way to debug its results, and is the preferred choice over traditional recursion in most use cases.
Lastly, we tackled the concept of true recursion, facilitated in M through the @ scoping operator. Although recursion comes with a cost in terms of memory and speed, you can consider using it for tasks involving a limited number of iterations...
