Traversing C pointer list: weird printf behaviour - c

Question

I declared a linked list implemented in C as follows:
struct node_List {
int i;
char * name;
struct node_List* next;
};
typedef struct node_List nodeList;
Then I declared the list head globally as:
nodeList list; // head of the list - does not contain relevant data
Finally, I have a function id(char * s) with a string s as th only argument.
nodeType id(char *s)
{
nodeType *p; // another List type
if ((p = malloc(sizeof(nodeType))) == NULL) {
// error: out of memory;
}
nodeList * node = &list;
// printf(" ");
while (node->next != NULL){
node = node->next;
if (strcmp(node->name, s) == 0){
// printf(" ");
// assign node to an attribute in p
return p;
}
}
// error: not found;
}
The problem is, when i run this program and call foo("somestring") the program executes the error: not found part and aborts execution, despite the string somestring being in the list.
I tried executing the very same program by inserting some printf() for debugging purposes, and it works perfectly, except it prints additional characters along with the output.
This happens each time I add some print lines, e.g. if I uncomment the two printf()s which I wrote in the example above (one of them or both, i get the same successful result). It doesn't work though if the printf is called with no arguments or with an empty string "".
I can't figure out what's happening, I double-checked the list creation and population functions and I am totally sure they work correctly. I tried changing the while break condition, but that didn't work, too. I have observed a similar behaviour on both Linux (with gcc) and Windows (using CodeBlocks editor's integrated compiler)
How could a printf directive affect a program so much?
EDIT: This code is part of a syntax analyzer written in Yacc. The whole code can be found below. It's a long read, and it is not completed, but the code above was tested and used to work as explained.
lexer: http://pastebin.com/1TEzzHie
parser: http://pastebin.com/vwCtMhX4

Answer 1

When looking in the provided source code, the algorithm to explore the linked list has two ways to miss node in the while-loop comparison.
Way 1 - starting only from the second node of the list.
Placing node = node->next; before the comparison will force the first comparison to be &(list)->next instead of &(list).
To start from the first node, simply place node = node->next; after
the comparison.
Way 2 - never ending to the last node of the list.
Using (node->next != NULL) in the while condition will force to exit from the loop before comparing the last node => node->next = NULL;.
To end by the last node, simply change the while condition to (node != NULL).
Solution:
while (node != NULL){ // end from the last node
if (strcmp(node->name, s) == 0){
// printf(" ");
// assign node to an attribute in p
return p;
}
node = node->next; // explore link after comparison
}

Answer 2

The actual error is a wrong type declaration of a variable returned by the function:
nodeType* createPoint(char* l){
nodeList* p;
if((p=malloc(sizeof(nodeList))) == NULL){
yyerror("out of memory");
} else {
// do stuff with p
}
return p;
}
The function return value was a nodeType* and p was instantiated as nodeList*.
The declaration of those two types was pretty simple, that's why the program could work.
the working code can be found here.
The strange behaviour with printf() was probably caused by the heap space needed for printf's arguments: since this function accepts an arbitrary number of parameters, it saves them in a list. This list is instantiated in the heap, there overwriting the old data left there from the wrong implementation of createPoint.