Recursively Finding a Node in a Linked List

Question

I'm trying to find a node recursively in this linked list but keep coming up with an error message - can anyone tell me what is wrong?
     public boolean find (Object obj)
          DonorNode node = new DonorNode(obj);
          DonorNode current = list;
          if (don.equals(current))
               return true;
          else
               return find(current.next);
     }

Answer 1

Please post within code tags (button above the message box).
Without more information it's hard to say.
What is list?
What is don?
If you don't mind me pointing out:
A method named find conventionally returns some object it is searching for or null if not found.
What you have (by that I mean a method returning boolean) is generally named contains (or some other obvious predicate name).
That being said, if I assume that DonorNodes contain some Object and have getter functions to access those; and that list is a DonorNode representing the head of the list, try something like:public boolean contains(Object o) {
    return contains(o, list);
private boolean contains(Object o, DonorNode n) {
    if (n.getObject() == o)
        return true;
    if (n.getNext() == null)
        return false;
    return contains(o, n.getNext());
}Although keep in mind that comparing two Objects using '==' will result in reference only comparison. If you need some other form of comparison you might consider using the equals method (make sure you then implement it in all potentially contained classes) or even narrowing the accepted argument to classes that implement the Comparable interface.
Hope this helps.