In C programming, consider the following recursive program: main() { printf("Jamboree"); main(); } How many times will the word Jamboree be printed?

Introduction / Context:
This question checks your understanding of recursion, function calls and program termination in C. It uses a deliberately simple but flawed recursive program where main calls itself without any stopping condition. You need to reason about what happens when a function keeps calling itself forever.

Given Data / Assumptions:

The function main calls printf with the string Jamboree and then calls main again.
There is no base case and no return statement in the given code fragment.
Each call to main is a normal function call that consumes stack space.
We assume a typical hosted C environment with finite stack memory.

Concept / Approach:
In C, each function call allocates a new stack frame to store return addresses and local variables. When main calls main again without any condition, the recursion continues indefinitely at the language level. In practice the system stack is finite, so the recursion eventually exhausts available stack space, which leads to a runtime error such as stack overflow. Until that failure occurs, each call prints Jamboree exactly once.

Step-by-Step Solution:
The program starts in main and executes printf, which prints Jamboree. Immediately after printing, main calls main again, which repeats the same sequence. As long as the system can allocate new stack frames, each new invocation prints Jamboree and recurses again. There is no condition to stop the recursion and no return path that finishes the sequence normally. Eventually the runtime system runs out of stack space and terminates the program, but the exact number of prints depends on implementation details and is not fixed.

Verification / Alternative check:
On a real machine, if you run a similar program, you will see many repetitions of Jamboree printed to the console, followed by an abnormal termination such as a segmentation fault. There is no compilation error, because recursive calls to main are allowed by the language, even though they are a poor design choice. This confirms that the effect is repeated printing until failure, not a fixed number of outputs.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Printing exactly once or twice would require either a base case or logic that stops after a small number of recursive calls.
The code does not contain a syntax error that prevents compilation, so it will compile in a typical C environment.

Common Pitfalls:
Some learners assume that main cannot be called recursively, which is not correct according to the C standard. Others forget about the stack limit and say that the word is printed infinitely many times. Conceptually the recursion is unbounded, but in practice the program terminates when resources are exhausted. For exam purposes, the intended answer is that it prints repeatedly until stack overflow or similar runtime failure.

Final Answer:
The program will print Jamboree repeatedly until it eventually crashes due to stack overflow or a similar runtime error, so there is no fixed finite count.