How to change recursive loop to non recursive loop

[ooosawaddee3]

I want to find area of contiguous 5 (5-connected area) in two dimension array like this

00000000000000000
00000055555500000
00000055055000000
00000000005550000
00000000000000000


Contiguous area of number 5 = 13
I write FindAreaof5 function below and m_tempData(x,y) is data in this array (0 or 5)
I call FindAreaof5 function by this loop

code
...............................................................
for (y=0; y< height; y++){
for (x=0; x< width; x++){
if (m_tempData(x,y) == 5){
InterestArea = FindAreaof5(x,y);
}
}
...............................................................

////Below this is FindAreaof5 function//////

code
...............................................................
long FindAreaof5(int x, int y)
{
long count ;
if (m_tempData(x,y)==0) return 0;
m_tempData(x,y) = 0;

count = 1 + FindAreaof5(x, y-1) + FindAreaof5(x+1, y-1)
+ FindAreaof5(x+1, y) + FindAreaof5(x+1, y+1)
+ FindAreaof5(x, y+1) +FindAreaof5(x-1, y+1)
+ FindAreaof5(x-1, y) + FindAreaof5(x-1, y-1);
return count;
...............................................................

In the above example I can find FindAreaof5 = 13
If FindAreaof5 has small value ,it can find FindAreaof5.
But if FindAreaof5 has large value (more than 12000) , it show message box and tell me there is Stack Overflow error.
I want to know how to solve this problem. Someone suggest me to change recursive loop to non recursive or use blob coloring but I do not know how to do that. If you know how to solve my problem, please tell me. Thank you very much.

[mksh68]

Hi

Either I am missing something out of your problem, or you didn't describe your problem correctly.

Atleast I can not understand the given example.

I do have some algorithm to find the connected similar values in two dimensional space. This algorithm is intended for multiple values (i.e. clusters of multiple values), but may well work for single value also.

Please elaborate your problem so that I try to find that piece of code from my untidy mess of computer