non void method for binary tree inorder traversal

I'm wondering if its possible to have an inorder tree traversal method in java actually RETURN something... I'm trying to traverse through the tree given a node and a value, return the node that matches the value:

/**
 * Variable for storing found node from inorder search
 */
private Node returnNode; 


/**
 * Perform an inorder search through tree.
 * If a value is matched, the node is saved to returnNode, otherwise 开发者_Go百科return null.
 * @param node The given node
 * @param value The value of the node to be found.
 */
public void inorder(Node node, Object value){
    if(node != null){
        inorder(node.leftChild, value);
        if(node.value.equals(value)){
            System.out.println(value + " was found at " + node);
            returnNode = node;
        }
        inorder(node.rightChild, value);
    }
}

Right now, I've tried declaring a public node to store the value, but I find that that doesn't work when I run:

assertEquals(newNode3, BT.contains("3"));
assertEquals(null, BT.contains("abcd"));

Where returnNode takes on newNode3's values and messes up my tests for null.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I would have thought you'd want something like this:

/**
 * Perform an inorder search through tree.
 * The first node in order that matches the value is returned, otherwise return null.
 * @param node The given node
 * @param value The value of the node to be found.
 * @return The first node that matches the value, or null
 */
public Node inorder(Node node, Object value){
    Node result = null;
    if(node != null){
        result = inorder(node.leftChild, value);
        if( result != null) return result;

        if(node.value.equals(value)){
            System.out.println(value + " was found at " + node);
            return node;
        }
        result = inorder(node.rightChild, value);
    }
    return result;
}