A pointer dereference allows the compiler to assume that a pointer is non-NULL, so it can then perform "invalid" optimisations (like dead-code removal), this po

A pointer dereference allows the compiler to assume that a pointer is non-NULL, so it can then perform "invalid" optimisations (like dead-code removal), this post contains an very small example: http://blog.llvm.org/2011/05/what-every-c-programmer-should-know_14.html http://blog.llvm.org/2011/05/what-every-c-programmer-should-...