This pointer manipulation is fine. GCC simply optimizes the parameters for printf(): https://godbolt.org/z/AHY7Nd https://godbolt.org/z/AHY7Nd *x will be 7 in

This pointer manipulation is fine. GCC simply optimizes the parameters for printf(): https://godbolt.org/z/AHY7Nd https://godbolt.org/z/AHY7Nd *x will be 7 in the end.