The following code below takes an array of string items (tokens) and searches for the lexographically largest, well it should anyways. The problem is that the program seems to reach the base case just fine, hand back and do the first comparison than BOOM. The stack dumps. No warnings or anything. Any ideas on what is going wrong?
std::string& largestWord(std::string items[],int numberWords){
int middle = numberWords/2;
std::string& rightLWord = largestWord(items, middle+1,numberWords);
std::string& leftLWord = largestWord(items, 0, middle);
if(leftLWord >= rightLWord){
return leftLWord;
}
return rightLWord;
}

std::string& largestWord(std::string items[],int left,int right){
if(right == left){
return items[left];
}
int middle = ( (left+right)/2 );
std::string& leftLWord = largestWord(items,left,middle);
std::string& rightLWord = largestWord(items,middle+1,right);
if(leftLWord >= rightLWord){
return leftLWord;
}
return rightLWord;
}