Mario problem set 1 with c lang

mario.c

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>


void makepyramid(int n);
char * printSpaces(int n);

int main()
{
   
    int inputVal = 0;
    int scanVal =0;
    // Get the rows value from the user until the value between 1 and 8
    while(inputVal<=0 || inputVal > 8) {
       printf("Height: ");
       scanVal = scanf("%i", &inputVal);
    }
   
    makepyramid(inputVal);
    return 0;
}



void makepyramid(int n) {
    // Double n and add 2 to it
    n = n*2 + 2;
    int r = n/2 +1;

    // Make Nested loop to print number of rows of hashes
    for(int i = 2; i<n;i+=2) {
    // Inject number of spaces according to this equation z = (n-i)/2+1
    int z = (n-i)/2-1;
    
     printf("%s", printSpaces(z));

        for(int j=i;j>0;j--) {
            printf("#");
            if(j == (i/2) + 1) {
                printf("  ");
            }
        }
        printf("\n");
    }

}

char * printSpaces(int n) {
  char *str = (char *)malloc(sizeof(char)*n);
   for(int i = 0; i<n;i++) {
        strcat(str, " ");
    }

    return str;
}