How to fill in a 2D array by equating it to a function with void parameters?

Question

I'm making a little minigame with the use of a 2D array. I tried making a function that starts you off with a clean board and want it in such a way that the cleanboard function is an rvalue if that makes sense.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#define MAX 8
#define EMPTY 0
#define BLACK 1
#define WHITE -1


//Fills the 2D array with 0s and places the 4 starting pieces in the middle
int **cleanboard(void){
    int newboard[MAX][MAX];
    (*newboard)[MAX] = malloc(sizeof*newboard*MAX);

    for(int row=0; row<MAX; row++){
        for(int col=0; col<MAX; col++){
            newboard[row][col] = EMPTY;
        }
    }

    newboard[3][3] = WHITE, newboard[4][4] = WHITE;
    newboard[4][3] = BLACK, newboard[3][4] = BLACK;

    return newboard;
}


//Displays the board
void printboard(int arr[][MAX]){
    printf("   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8\n");               //Top numbers

    for(int i=0; i<MAX; i++){
        for(int j=0; j<MAX; j++){
            if(j==0){printf("%d ", i+1);}        //Side numbers
            switch(arr[i][j]){                   //Print piece
            case 0: printf(" .");
                    break;
            case 1: printf(" b");
                    break;
            case -1: printf(" w");
                    break;
            }
        }
     printf("\n");
    }
}


int main(){
    int **board;
    board = cleanboard();
    printboard(board);
    return 0;
}

With the given code, it outputs:

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1

However, this example is how the board should look:

//Example 2D array:

int grid[MAX][MAX] = {{-1, 1, -1, 1, 0, -1, 1, 0},
                      {1, -1, -1, 1, 0, -1, -1, 1},
                      {1, 1, -1, 1, -1, 1, 1, 1},
                      {-1, 0, -1, -1, -1, 1, 1, -1},
                      {1, -1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0},
                      {0, 1, -1, 1, -1, -1, 1, -1},
                      {1, 1, 1, -1, 0, -1, -1, -1},
                      {0, -1, -1, -1, -1, 1, -1, 0}};

printboard(grid);

Output:

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1  w b w b . w b .
2  b w w b . w w b
3  b b w b w b b b
4  w . w w w b b w
5  b w . b . b . .
6  . b w b w w b w
7  b b b w . w w w
8  . w w w w b w .

The cleanboard function isn't storing the values or something which causes the printboard function to stop. Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

The parameter type for printboard is what you want. However, the conversion of arrays to pointers only occurs with the first dimension of a multi-dimensional array. You're attempting to convert between a int (*)[MAX] and a int ** which are not the same thing.

In cleanboard, you need to define newboard as:

int (*newboard)[MAX] = malloc(sizeof*newboard*MAX);

Then the function itself should be defined as:

int (*cleanboard(void))[MAX] {

And board in main should be defined as:

int (*board)[MAX];

Also, you'll want to print a newline in printboard after the inner loop runs.