How to pass a pointer argument to a function without knowing the size to be allocated for that pointer - objective-c

Question

I know this question is very noob. I am trying to understand how the pointer thing works. I studied basics of C but still did not understand this.
Given this piece of function:
+ (void)nv21ToRgbWithWidth:(unsigned int)width height:(unsigned int)height yuyv:(unsigned char *)yuyv rgb:(unsigned char *)rgb
{
const int nv_start = width * height ;
UInt32 i, j, index = 0, rgb_index = 0;
UInt8 y, u, v;
int r, g, b, nv_index = 0;
for(i = 0; i < height ; i++)
{
for(j = 0; j < width; j ++){
//nv_index = (rgb_index / 2 - width / 2 * ((i + 1) / 2)) * 2;
nv_index = i / 2 * width + j - j % 2;
y = yuyv[rgb_index];
u = yuyv[nv_start + nv_index ];
v = yuyv[nv_start + nv_index + 1];
r = y + (140 * (v-128))/100; //r
g = y - (34 * (u-128))/100 - (71 * (v-128))/100; //g
b = y + (177 * (u-128))/100; //b
if(r > 255) r = 255;
if(g > 255) g = 255;
if(b > 255) b = 255;
if(r < 0) r = 0;
if(g < 0) g = 0;
if(b < 0) b = 0;
index = rgb_index % width + (height - i - 1) * width;
rgb[index * 3+0] = b;
rgb[index * 3+1] = g;
rgb[index * 3+2] = r;
rgb_index++;
}
}
}
How am I suppose to know how the unsigned char * for rgb should be initialized before passing in to the function?
I tried calling the function like this:
unsigned char *rgb = NULL;
[MyClass nv21ToRgbWithWidth:imageWidth height:imageHeight yuyv:yuyvValues rgb:rgb];
But the the program crashes on this line:
rgb[index * 3+0] = b;
I see rgb was initialized with NULL, so you can't assign values. So, I thought of initializing an array and pass it to pointer rgb like this:
unsigned char rgbArr[10000];
unsigned char *rgb = rgbArr;
but the function still crashes. I really don't know how should I pass the rgb parameter in this function. Please help me understand this.

Answer 1

The expected size in bytes seems to be at least height*width*3; it might be that allocating such an array as a local variable (as you do with unsigned char rgbArr[10000]) exceeds a stack limit; The program likely crashes in such a case. I'd try to use the heap instead:
unsigned char* rgb = malloc(imageHeight*imageWidth*3);
[MyClass nv21ToRgbWithWidth:imageWidth height:imageHeight yuyv:yuyvValues rgb:rgb];
...
free(rgb);

Answer 2

That is what the malloc(), calloc(), realloc() and free() functions are for. Don't forget to use the free() function to prevent memory leaks... I hope that helps.