Rule proposal: `no-useless-recursion`

Disallow simple recursive function.

Fail

function foo(bar) {
  if (bar.baz) {
    return foo(bar.baz);
  }

  return bar;
}

Pass

function foo(bar) {
  while (bar.baz) {
    bar = bar.baz:
  }

  return bar;
}

function foo(bar) {
  for (; bar.baz; bar = bar.baz) {}

  return bar;
}

function foo(bar) {
  if (Array.isArray(bar)) {
    return bar.map(baz => foo(bar));
  }

  return bar;
}

I’m not sure how to define “simple”.

[silverwind]

Recursion is necessary for some algorithms, one can not simply forbid it generally. Maybe call it no-useless-recursion but detecting which cases are useless will probably be hard.

[sindresorhus]

I agree, it should be named no-useless-recursion and should only target some simple cases that can use loops instead.