Incrementing an integer in a recursive method doesn't work(LinkedList)

Question

Basically I don't know why my integer n doesn't get higher.
Thanks for every answer!

    public int n;

    public int firstIndexOf(T val) {
    if (val == this.getValue()) {
        return n;
    } else {
        if (val != this.getValue() && this.next != null) {
            n++;
            return this.next.firstIndexOf(val);

        } else {
            return -1;
        }
    }
   }

Answer 1

The increment (n++) was in the wrong condition check:

    private int n = 0;

    public int firstIndexOf(int val) {
        if ( val == this.getValue() ) {
            return n+1; //This is were the increment should happen
        }
        else {
            if ( this.next != null ) {
                return this.next.firstIndexOf(val);
            } else {
                return -1;
            }
        }
    }

Also if you want to count all the elements in your linked list which have the same value as val, you can use this:

private int n = 0;

public int firstIndexOf(int val) {
    if ( val == this.getValue() ) {
        if ( this.next != null ) {
            return 1 + this.next.firstIndexOf(val);
        }
        else {
            return 1;
        }
    } else {
        if ( this.next != null ) {
            return this.next.firstIndexOf(val);

        } else {
            return 0;
        }
    }
}