Design a recursive version of the Euclidean algorithm

Here's a recursive Python program that finds the greatest common denominator:

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys

def gcdR (x, y):

if (y):

return (gcdR (y, x % y))

return x

if (__name__ = = "__main__"):

x = max (int (sys. argv[ 1 ]), int (sys. argv[ 2 ]))

y = min (int (sys. argv[ 1 ]), int (sys. argv[ 2 ]))

print gcdR (y, x % y)

sys. exit (0)