Ocaml Error Unbound Value when using Recursion

Question

My code is very basic as I am pretty new to ocaml I am trying to call a function recursively but I am getting an unbound value error message on the name of the function

let count_help x a lst = match lst with 
    [] -> a
    | (s,i)::t -> if s = x then count_help x a+1 t else count_help x a t
;;

let count_assoc lst x =
    count_help x 0 lst
;;

The error is Unbound value count_help on the line that calls count_help inside of count_help

This code is simply suppose to count the number times an association appears for the given character x

Solution

You need to say

let rec count_help ...

to allow the name count_help to be used recursively within its definition.