What happens without a base case

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Accepted Answer

Python enforces a maximum recursion depth (default ~1000). When exceeded, it raises RecursionError: maximum recursion depth exceeded. The function doesn't run forever - the call stack has a finite size and Python protects against overflowing it. You can inspect and change the limit with sys.getrecursionlimit() and sys.setrecursionlimit(), but this is rarely the right fix - rethink the algorithm instead.