title: Count times Recursive was called C
body: <p>I have a function that calculates geometric mean (nth root of product of terms, where n is number of terms), and the only thing I'm having trouble with is figuring out how to keep track of how many terms there were.  The only thing I could come up with was a global variable, but I know I shouldn't do that.  How can I do it without the global variable?</p>
  
  <pre><code>float count;
  float geometricMean(float n) {
      char again; 
      float j;
      printf("Input a number:  ");
      scanf("%f", &amp;j);
      printf("Another number? (y/n)  ");
      scanf(" %c", &amp;again);
      if (again == 'y') {
          j *= geometricMean(n+1);
          if (n==1)
              return pow(j, (1/count));
          else {
              return j;
          }
      }
      else {
          count = n;
          return j;
      }
  }
  </code></pre>