Linked List Nodes in Python

Question

I am working on linked list python code (see code below), and I can't for the life of me work out why when the condition check_value == search_term is clearly True the function does not return that.

https://i.sstatic.net/2hpmp.jpg

You can see that the print statement for the fifth iteration shows that the statement is True, but the function overall evaluates to False. Can anyone explain what I am doing wrong?

class LinkedListNode:
def __init__(self, value, next_node = None):
    self.value = value
    self.next_node = next_node

def linked_list_search(node, search_term):
    check_value = node.value
    next_node = node.next_node
    
    if not next_node == None:
        next_node_value = next_node.value
        
        if check_value == search_term:
            return True
        else:
            
            linked_list_search(node.next_node, search_term)
    
    if check_value == search_term:
        
        return True
    
    
    return False

#Below are lines of code that create a linked list,
#and then search for two values in that linked list:
#one that is there, one that isn't. If your function
#works, it should print True then False.
node_7 = LinkedListNode(5)
node_6 = LinkedListNode(2, node_7)
node_5 = LinkedListNode(9, node_6)
node_4 = LinkedListNode(1, node_5)
node_3 = LinkedListNode(4, node_4)
node_2 = LinkedListNode(6, node_3)
root_node = LinkedListNode(7, node_2)

print(linked_list_search(root_node, 9))
print(linked_list_search(root_node, 3))

Thanks in advance.

Update: Apologies for original post. I wanted to show the output, which is why I included an image. Code is now included.

Thank you for the replies.

Answer 1

You can implement the linked_list_search in a lot simpler way.

def linked_list_search(node, search_term):
    # Iterate through list till you reach the tail of the list
    while(node):
        if(node.value == search_term):
            # Return True as soon as you find the search_term
            return True
        # Assign node to the next node in the list 
        node = node.next
    # Return False if search_term not found in the linked_list
    return False