How does this very simple code work?

[Codeless]

This is a simple recursion program which reverses the order of characters in a word

public class Main 
{

public static String reverse(String str)
{
	if (str.equals(""))
	{
		return "";
	}
	else
	{
		char first = str.charAt(0);
		String part = str.substring(1);
		return reverse(part)+ first ;
		
	}   												 
}
	
public static void main (String[] args)
{
System.out.print(reverse("cat"));
}

my question is waht happens here

return reverse(part)+ first ;

because to me it looks like it should print the word in the same order, the value of "first" is c, then the next time through it becomes a... so why does it print tac? and not cat?

[m00nchile]

because you append the first character to the end of the string sequence.