This works because of one of the most fundamental features of Julia: multiple dispatch. In Julia, functions can have many methods which apply to various combinations of argument types, and when you call a function, Julia invokes the most specific method which matches the type of all the arguments that you called it with. The // call in the method definition you posted defines rational-integer // in terms of integer-integer // – so it isn't actually recursive because the method doesn't call itself, it calls a different method that is part of the same "generic function".
To understand how multiple dispatch works in this case, let's consider the evaluation of the expression (3//4)//6. We'll use the @which macro to see which method each function call invokes.
julia> @which (3//4)//6
//(x::Rational{T<:Integer}, y::Integer) at rational.jl:25
Since 3//4 is a Rational{Int} <: Rational and 6 is an Int <: Integer, and no other more specific methods apply, this method is called:
//(x::Rational, y::Integer) = x.num // (x.den*y)
The current version of the method is actually slightly more complicated than what you posted because it's been modified to check for integer overflow – but it's essentially the same, and it's easier to understand the older, simpler version, so I'll use that. Let's assign x and y to the arguments and see what method the definition calls:
julia> x, y = (3//4), 6
(3//4,6)
julia> x.num
3
julia> x.den*y
24
julia> x.num // (x.den*y)
1//8
julia> @which x.num // (x.den*y)
//(n::Integer, d::Integer) at rational.jl:22
As you can see, this expression doesn't call the same method, it calls a different method:
//(n::Integer, d::Integer) = Rational(n,d)
This method simply calls the Rational constructor which puts the ratio of n and d into lowest terms and creates a Rational number object.
It is quite common to define one method of a function in terms of another method of the same function, in Julia. This is how argument defaults work, for example. Consider this definition:
julia> f(x, y=1) = 2x^y
f (generic function with 2 methods)
julia> methods(f)
# 2 methods for generic function "f":
f(x) at none:1
f(x, y) at none:1
julia> f(1)
2
julia> f(2)
4
julia> f(2,2)
8
The default argument syntax simply generates a second method with only onee argument, which calls the two-argument form with the default value. So f(x, y=1) = 2x^y is exactly equivalent to defining two methods, where the unary method just calls the binary method, supplying a default value for the second argument:
julia> f(x, y) = 2x^y
f (generic function with 1 method)
julia> f(x) = f(x, 1)
f (generic function with 2 methods)
