Primitive Recursive Function

As first shown by Meyer and Ritchie (1967), do-loops (which have a fixed iteration limit) are a special case of while-loops. A function that can be implemented using only do-loops is called primitive recursive. (In contrast, a computable function can be coded using a combination of for- and while-loops, or while-loops only.) Examples of primitive recursive functions include power, greatest common divisor, and (the function giving the th prime).

The Ackermann function is the simplest example of a well-defined total function that is computable but not primitive recursive, providing a counterexample to the belief in the early 1900s that every computable function was also primitive recursive (Dötzel 1991; Wolfram 2002, p. 907).

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