Print a string from n through 1 using recursion

I’m trying to print a string from number n through 1 using this recursive function:

function numStr(n) {
    let outputStr = '';
    
    if (n === 1) {
        return outputStr + n;
    } else {
        outputStr + n;
        return numStr(n-1);
    }
}

console.log(numStr(5));    //should print 54321

I know changing the lines 7 and 8 to return outputStr + n + numStr(n-1) does the job. But I can’t figure out why the above code doesn’t work as expected. It prints ‘1’ in all cases.

Answer

When n!=1 then you are just appending the n to a variable ouputStr but you are not actually returning this outputStr value. Change the code to:

function numStr(n) {
    if (n === 1) {
        return '1';
    } else {
        return n+numStr(n-1);
    }
}

console.log(numStr(5));    //should print 54321