all the old tools are vanishing...

[DrRibosome]

I came back to computer chess after some time away. However, to my dismay, I'm having trouble finding source/binaries for what I thought were standard tools.

- Im still looking for a polyglot download if anyone can point me to one. The url from the chess programming wiki just gives a 404, and parts of the website it links to show up under webarchive.org... Ideally, if someone has the source, I would like to put it on github for posterity.

- I dug up what appears to be the latest version of icsdrone (still on source forge?!), removed some readline macros it couldnt find while building, and removed an unitilized var. The final result is available on github if anyone is interested github.com/jdc2172/icsdroneng .

- Luckily, cutechess-cli is on github, and bayeselo is still available Rémi Coulom's site

Maybe we should consolidate hosting these tools (as they all seem open source), along with the methodologies documented on the chess programming wiki, into a single github namespace for posterity.

[velmarin]

H.G.Muller it keeps in site a sources.
http://hgm.nubati.net/cgi-bin/gitweb.cg ... ;a=summary

[hgm]

Note that the 'learn' branch in the on-line Polyglot source repository is the version I distribute with WinBoard (Polyglot 2.0.3). The older versions lack support for excluding moves from analysis, and for reporting tablebase hits etc. in the thinking output.

I know that Michel van den Bergh maintains icsDrone nowadays. I don't know if he does that on github, and consequently whether the github version is still up to date or hopelessly obsolete.

[Richard Allbert]

I know that Michel van den Bergh maintains icsDrone nowadays. I don't know if he does that on github, and consequently whether the github version is still up to date or hopelessly obsolete.

I compiled it with no changes needed for the Raspberry Pi. I used the version on sourceforge:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/icsdro ... rce=navbar

just did ./configure, make, make install

[DrRibosome]

hmm, i compiled on a mac and got problems - maybe i was missing a dependency (probably on readline)

[DrRibosome]

also, building polyglot from the source you mentioned yields the error:

$ ./configure && make
...
book_make.c:20:10: fatal error: 'pgheader.h' file not found
#include "pgheader.h"

[mvk]

also, building polyglot from the source you mentioned yields the error:

$ ./configure && make
...
book_make.c:20:10: fatal error: 'pgheader.h' file not found
#include "pgheader.h"

You have to add pgheader.h manually for some reason. Here is the one Michel once shared with me:

Code: Select all

#ifndef PGHEADER_H
#define PGHEADER_H

#define PGHEADER_NO_ERROR 0
#define PGHEADER_OS_ERROR 1
#define PGHEADER_BAD_FORMAT 2
#define PGHEADER_NO_HEADER 3
#define PGHEADER_NAME_COLLISION 4
#define PGHEADER_BAD_PARAMETER 5
#define PGHEADER_BAD_HEADER 6
#define PGHEADER_TEST_FAILURE 7

const char * pgheader_version;
const char * pgheader_magic;

/* Checks is this variant is known in the Chess Engine Communication
   Protocol.
*/
int pgheader_known_variant(const char *variant);

/* This does some heuristic tests to make it reasonably sure we are dealing
   with a Polyglot book.
*/
int pgheader_detect(const char *infile);

/* "variants" is a linefeed separated list of supported variants.
   "comments" is a free format string which may contain linefeeds.
   "header" must be freed if the function returns without error.
*/
int pgheader_create(char **header, const char *variants, const char *comment);

/* "variants" and "comment" must be freed if the function returns 
   without error.
*/
int pgheader_parse(const char *header, char **variants, char **comment);

/*  "raw_header" is a byte array ready for prepending to a book file.
    It must be freed after use.
 */
int pgheader_create_raw(char **raw_header, const char *header, unsigned int *size);

/* "header" must be freed if the function returns without error.
*/
int pgheader_read(char **header, const char *infile);

/* "raw_header" must be freed if the function returns without error.
*/
int pgheader_read_raw(char **raw_header, const char *infile, unsigned int *size);

int pgheader_write(const char *header, const char *infile, const char *outfile);
int pgheader_delete(const char *infile, const char *outfile);

const char * pgheader_strerror(int pgerror);

int pgheader_test();
#endif

[hgm]

also, building polyglot from the source you mentioned yields the error:

$ ./configure && make
...
book_make.c:20:10: fatal error: 'pgheader.h' file not found
#include "pgheader.h"

You have to add pgheader.h manually for some reason.

Strange. First I thought I must have forgotten to add it to git after unpacking Michel's 1.4.70b tar ball, as it seems a new header file, not used in earlier versions, and would thus not be added by "git commit -a", which is what I usually do when I have no idea what the changes are. But then I should still have it amongst the source files. So either Michel forgot to pack it in the tar ball, or I unpacked it on another computer.

[Edit] Ummmm, it also seems to need a pgheader.c.

I never noticed this, because I never build the master branch; 1.4.70b was derived from 1.4.67b, which is quite obsolete by now and lacks many features.

[Richard Allbert]

hmm, i compiled on a mac and got problems - maybe i was missing a dependency (probably on readline)

Ah, ok, I compiled without readline.

[hgm]

I found the missing pgheader files on my old laptop, and managed to get it running and connected long enough to push them to the git repo. That made the master branch compile again.

It still lacks all the new features of 2.0.3, though.