Why doesn't factorial overflow the stack in Erlang?

Question

-module(demo).
-export([factorial/1]).

factorial(0) -> 1;
factorial(N) -> 
    N * factorial(N-1).

Factorial is not tail recursive, but why doesn't it overflow the stack? I can get a factorial of 100,000 without, but it takes some time to calculate.

Answer 1

The "Erlang stack stack" is not stored on the system-defined stack for the process (usually several megabytes), but on the heap. As far as I know, it will grow indefinitely until the system refuses to provide the VM with more memory.

Size includes 233 words for the heap area ( which includes the stack ). The garbage collector increases the heap as needed.

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