magento recursive function not working

Question

i created recursive function in magento which give string out at last .

i had created custom customer attributes, every time a new customer is registered he is registered using attributes from its parent customer some thing link MLM.

i created custom attribute refcode which is id of customer (refcode of customer at 0 level is admin). When i register new customer ref code is needed to already registered customer like 1 ,2 ,4

below is senario

customer | ID | Ref code
A           1      admin
B           2        1
C           3        1
D           4        3

now give customer D i want to get all parent customer id's

for customer D i want output 4->3->1->admin

i wrote below code Case 1

function getallrefcode($id,$string){
   if($id=='admin'){
     return $string;
   }else{

     $customerObj  = Mage::getModel('customer/customer')->load($id);
     $attr = $customerObj->getData('refcode');
     $newstring=$string.'->'.$attr ;
     getallrefcode($attr ,$newstring);
   }
} 

echo getallrefcode('4','');

i get blank value why so ,

but for below code Case 2

function getallrefcode($id,$string){
  if($id=='admin'){
    return $string;
}else{

  $customerObj  = Mage::getModel('customer/customer')->load($id);
  $attr = $customerObj->getData('refcode');
  echo $newstring=$string.'->'.$attr ;
  getallrefcode($attr ,$newstring);
}
} 

getallrefcode('4','');

i get output as "4->3->1->admin"

what i am missing with case I why return is not giving output

Answer 1

You should put return statement before calling getallrefcode($attr ,$newstring); inside getallrefcode