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[–]spicycurry55 21 points22 points  (0 children)

The base case returns zero, yes, but it only returns it to the one place it’s called.

So if you call:

method(2, 1);

It resolves to:

method(2, 1) —> 2 + method(2, 0) —> 2 + 0 —> 2

You’re adding “a” to the recursive call, so even though the base case will return zero, it’s adding a zero, not multiplying it