Why is this C linked list corrupting?

I have not taken a CS class in 2 years I can not figure out why this simple linked list is corrupting:

int exists(linkedlist *list, int val) {
    if(list == NULL)
        return 0;

    if(list->value == val)
        return 1;
    return exists(list->next, val);
}

When I try to execute exists(list,33); the first value of the 开发者_开发知识库list is overwritten with 33. I was forced to use an iterative approach and got the program working, however this bugs me since this appears to be a valid solution. Why doesn't it work?

(NOTE: When creating nodes I always set list->next = NULL;)

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Are you sure the second if statement is

if(list->value == val)

and not

if(list->value = val)

That's the only thing I can see that would change the value.

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What doesn't work exactly? The code looks perfectly OK.

Try running you program in valgrind, to check for memory errors you might be missing.

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By the way, how long is your linked list?

Probably not your problem here, but be aware that your recursive approach means you could end up with a stack overflow on very long lists.