malloc is the devil

hay, /prog/.

I'm creating a function which, given a pointer as an argument, creates memory for it (malloc) and then fills it with data (using a struct). This doesn't work, seemly because I'm doing the malloc inside the function itself, if I call malloc to the pointer in main, before calling the function, everything works fine.

Does this mean I can't pass a pointer to a function, malloc it inside there and be on my merry way when the function returns? Ouch. halp.

What? It sounds like you're doing this:

void foo(struct bar * ptr) {
    ptr = malloc(sizeof(struct bar));
    ptr->retarded = 1;
}

int main(void) {
    struct quux * mystruct;
    foo(mystruct);
}

Which is completely retarded.