Question about global variable in recursive function

[NewProgramma]

Hi everyone,

I don't quite understand the difference in output for the following program when I declare "char ch" as a global / local variable:

//purpose: to reverse the order of a word or a sentence. eg) program -> margorp.
 #include <iostream>
using namespace std;
void msg()
{
	char ch;
	cin.get(ch);	    
	if (ch != '.')      
	{                   
		msg();
	}
        cout << ch;
}

int main()
{
	msg();	
	
	system ("pause");
	return 0;
}

as you can see if I declare the variable (ch) as global, the program will output dots (.) corresponding to how many characters that I've inputted.

eg) if I enter abcd, the output would be: ....

But how is this possible?

thank you all for the insights.

[coder777]

If ch is global it contains the very last input character which is the dot, otherwise you won't see any output.
if ch is local it is pushed/popped to/from the stack each time msg() is called.