using return in call to recursive function

Question

I've got a question. I'm using the unload function from my pset5 speller code as an example. I read somewhere that it is good habit to include a return in front of your call to the recursive function. However, when I did it in my case here, it did not work out. If I put

 return liberator(node->children[i]);

, instead of what is below down there, that is

liberator(node->children[i];

I get memory leakage. Please advise.

Full code for reference:

/**
* Unloads dictionary from memory. Returns true if successful else false.
*/
 bool unload(void)
{
//function declaration
bool liberator(trienode *node);
//use the liberator function to remove all the children of ROOT
liberator(ROOT);
return true;
}



//function to find the leaf of a branch and next remove the memory
bool liberator(trienode *node)
{
for (int i = 0; i < 27; i++)
{
    //iterate through each of the node's children structures
    //if children structure pointer is not null (ie it is not a leaf), go one level down
    if (node->children[i] != NULL)
    {
        liberator(node->children[i]);
    }
}

//if not, all children pointers are null and we can free the memoery and move up to the calling function(ie 1 level up)
free(node);
node = NULL;
return true;

}

Answer 1

Suppose you have a (non-recursive) function that calls a different function.

bool larger (int a, int b) { return a > b; }

What's the difference between doing

bool check (int a, int b) {

larger(a,b);

printf("%d\n", a); }

or doing

bool check (int a, int b) {

  return larger(a,b);  
printf("%d\n", a); }

Which one will print something of the two functions? Now see if you can infer from this example what would happen if you add return to your recursive function