Tail recursion is a specific form of recursion where a function makes a recursive call as its final operation, with no additional computation after the call. In such cases, the current function's stack frame is no longer needed and can be replaced by the next one, allowing for optimization by reusing stack space. This optimization, known as tail call optimization (TCO), enables tail-recursive functions to execute in constant stack space, preventing potential stack overflow errors in deep recursions.
Example of Tail Recursion:
def tail_recursive_factorial(n, accumulator=1):
if n == 0:
return accumulator
else:
return tail_recursive_factorial(n - 1, n * accumulator)