The code when it doesn't crash has been reorganized by the compiler so the indirection doesn't even happen until it is preparing the arguments for the printf, which is in an else after the NULL check. If you don't need the value of a computation in one of two sides of an if statement and you know there are no legitimate side effects (I say "legitimate", as crashing does not count) to the calculation, it makes sense to delay the execution of that logic until and unless you actually need it done. I thereby don't find either result surprising here: it is just a demonstration of different optimization decisions and abilities of the two compilers.