uci info seldepth?

[micron]

What does "selective search depth" mean in the UCI specification?

Code: Select all

* seldepth <x>
		selective search depth in plies,
		if the engine sends seldepth there must also be a "depth" present in the same string.

Robert P.

[bob]

What does "selective search depth" mean in the UCI specification?

Code: Select all

* seldepth <x>
		selective search depth in plies,
		if the engine sends seldepth there must also be a "depth" present in the same string.

Robert P.

Vague/ambiguous term. It could mean any of the following, depending on the program used:

(1) max depth reached during a search;

(2) number of selective plies tacked on to the end of the normal search;

(3) a random number in the case of a "certain" program.

It conveys very little useful information...

[Mincho Georgiev]

What does "selective search depth" mean in the UCI specification?

Code: Select all

* seldepth <x>
		selective search depth in plies,
		if the engine sends seldepth there must also be a "depth" present in the same string.

Robert P.

Vague/ambiguous term. It could mean any of the following, depending on the program used:

(1) max depth reached during a search;

(2) number of selective plies tacked on to the end of the normal search;

(3) a random number in the case of a "certain" program.

It conveys very little useful information...

Agreed! And for that reason my implementation is simple and foolish and the only benefit from it is to show with no need to count by an eye the all plies of the displayed line. I.E.: if current depth is 10 and the line is 15 plies long, 10/15 (depth/seldepth) is displayed.

[Steve Maughan]

I simply do the maximum depth of search. As other have pointed out it's quite a meaningless term for users. But I found it interesting when developing Monarch to see when an extension explodes.

Steve

[micron]

Right, so it can mean anything the programmer wants. Many GUIs don't even display the seldepth value.

Robert P.

[JuLieN]

In Prédateur I understood this as "the maximal depth reached during the search".

So, when Arena displays "11/23" in the depth column it means : Fully searched up to the 11th ply, with some extension(s) reaching up to the 23rd ply.

I have second thought, though, about this UCI element, too, because two other interpretations could be made :
1) general seldepth
2) seldepth for the PV

The second one would be the most interesting information to get but, as the protocol says nothing regarding this point, I go for 1). At least it's easy to implement : you just set a max_depth counter to 0 when starting your search and increase it to current_depth when this one is bigger.