Recursion in the main function

Question

I tried recursion in the main function, but why 'i' variable is not getting updated, it only gets updated till i=1 and then remains constant. Below is the code:-

int main(int i = 0)
{
    std::cout << "i value" << i << std::endl;
    if (i == 3)
        return 0;
    std::cout << "hello" << std::endl;
    main(i++);
}

Answer 1

See for example cppreference/main_function:

The main function has several special properties:

1. It cannot be used anywhere in the program

   a) in particular, it cannot be called recursively

   b) its address cannot be taken

[...]

You cannot call main recursively. Also your signature is not correct. Correct signatures are:

int main () { body }                                                (1)     
int main (int argc, char *argv[]) { body }                          (2)     
/* another implementation-defined form, with int as return type */  (3)

For (3) you need to check your implementation, I am not aware of one that allows int main(int) (though I didn't bother to check).

Last but not least, foo(i++); will increment i and then call foo with the original value of i. You probably want foo(++i); or rather foo(i + 1);.

TL;DR

int my_main(int i=0) {
     // put code here
     my_main(i + 1);
}

int main() {
   my_main();
}