🚀 go-pugleaf

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Andy Georges wrote:
>
> Sorry if this is a FAQ, but can anybody point me to some docs or
explain how
> I can get gnuchess to generate the moves it chooses in a standard format,
> such as e2e3 instead of also giving the target position or the piece plus
> the target position?

GNU Chess produces moves in standard algebraic notation (SAN).

This is the most widely used format for representation of chess moves,
it may not be the most easily machineable format, but that isn't the
only criteria for selecting a format, otherwise it would probably be in
binary.

I'd strongly suggest you consider working with SAN, if you need to
handle chess moves in software.

SAN is documented in the PGN specification. There is a rather dated SAN
toolkit for parsing SAN in C, many major programming and scripting
languages now have SAN parsing modules (Perl, Python etc).

I'm not sure what alternative you are suggesting, but "from square, and
to square" doesn't handle (under)promotions very well. LAN is very
bulky, and I don't think we'll be implementing obselete standards for
output.

If you do need to implement an output format to handle software not
using standard algebraic notation you'll find all the bits you need in
the SANMove routine in move.c, but I fear this way lies madness and the
tower of Babel, and such changes are unlikely to be merged back in
unless you can make a very compelling case. The PGN specification is
required reading at this point.

The approach used is to accept less strict move representations, but
only produce standard compliant output, which is a long established
tradition for this kind of problem.

Any deviation from SAN in the current version of GNU Chess is a bug.

GNU Chess 5.06 is too chatty in Xboard mode, this will be fixed in 5.08.
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