Im looking for an elegant way to implement delay in a recursive function. I've searched through other's code looking, but have yet to find anything. Id like the code to render, delay, then recursively call it's self. But currently the code is only rendering when the recursive function is over.

I suppose, I could make the function no longer recursive and do the same using whiles inside of the draw function. Reluctantly i could also use global variables to persist the data.

What am i missing?

<code>
void setup()
{
 size(900, 600);
 framerate(30);
 background(102);
 fill(255,255,255,100);
 noStroke();
 smooth();
 
 drawCircles(450, 300, 50, 15);
}

void draw()
{
 delay(300);
 drawCircles(450, 300, 50, 15);
}

void drawCircles(float x, float y, int radius, int level)
{
 if (level > 0)
 {
   float u;
   
   u = 2*PI*random(1);
   x = x + radius*cos(u);
   y = y + radius*sin(u);
   
   ellipse( x, y, radius, radius);

   // i'd like to dealy here, after rendering
   // delay(300);
   drawCircles( x, y, radius, level - 1);
 }
}
</code>

Things are only drawn to screen when void draw() finishes. So a delay won't help, since it'll still not draw anything until you return from drawCircles()

Sometmies the most elegant solution just doesn't work I'm afraid this is probably one of those times.
I think the best solution is a global variable. Or have the drawCircles function be a method of a class, and have the level variable stored within your circles class.