Find item in a Linked List in C

Question

Following the tutorial, I wrote down this function to find the key in a linked list. However, it doesn't seem to work for me, curious about the reason. Here's part of the find function:

node_t *find_node(node_t *head, int number_to_find)
{
  node_t *tmp = head;

  while (tmp != NULL)
  {
    if(tmp->value == number_to_find)
    {
      return tmp;
      tmp = tmp->next;
    }
  }
  return NULL;
}

I embedded this function into my program. It successfully compiled but as it runs, the terminal did not show anything.

#define MAX_LIST 25

typedef struct node
{
  int value;
  struct node *next;
}node_t;

node_t *create_new_node(int value)
{
  node_t *new = malloc(sizeof(node_t));

  new->value = value;
  new->next = NULL;

  return new;
}

node_t *add_to_list(node_t *head, node_t *next_node)
{
  next_node->next = head;
  return next_node;
}

/*
TO FIND VALUE IN THE LINKED LIST
*/
node_t *find_link_list(node_t *head, int number_to_find)
{
  node_t *tmp = head;

  while (tmp != NULL)
  {
    if(tmp->value == number_to_find)
    {
      return tmp;
      tmp = tmp->next;
    }
  }
  return NULL;
}


bool print_linked_list(node_t *head)
{
  if(head == NULL)
  {
    return false;
  }
  else
  {
    node_t *tmp = head;

    while(tmp != NULL)
    {
      printf("%d ", tmp->value);
      tmp = tmp->next;
    }
  return true; 
  }
}

int main()
{
  node_t *head = NULL;
  node_t *tmp;

  for(int i = 0; i < MAX_LIST; i++)
  {
    tmp = create_new_node(i);
    head = add_to_list(head, tmp);
  }

  tmp = find_link_list(head, 9);
  printf("%d \n", tmp->value);

  print_linked_list(head);
}

Anyone has a clue why this happen? It would be much appreciated : )

Answer 1

  tmp = tmp->next;

should be outside of the if statement. Currently, you're saying, get to the next node in the list only if the value is equal to the target value. So instead you can have

while (tmp != NULL)
{
   if(tmp->value == number_to_find)
   {
     return tmp;
   }
   tmp = tmp->next;
}