NAME
PolyGlot - Winboard protocol to UCI protocol adapter
- book engine for Polyglot books
- - a collection of utilities for creating and analyzing open-
- ing books
+ - a collection of utilities for creating and analyzing
+ opening books
- a utility for analyzing epd files
- a perft counter
SYNOPSIS
polyglot [configfile] [-noini] [-ec engine] [-ed enginedirectory] [-en
- enginename] [-log] [-lf logfile] [-hash value] [-bk book] [-pg
- <name>=<value>]* [-uci <name>=<value>]*
+ enginename] [-log true/false] [-lf logfile] [-pg <name>=<value>]* [-uci
+ <name>=<value>]*
polyglot make-book [-pgn inputfile] [-bin outputfile] [-max-ply ply]
- [-min-game games] [-min-score score] [-only-white] [-only-black] [-uni-
- form]
+ [-min-game games] [-min-score score] [-only-white] [-only-black]
+ [-uniform]
polyglot merge-book -in1 inputfile1 -in2 inputfile2 [-out outputfile]
By specifying an opening book (in PolyGlot book format) chess engines
can transparently use such books.
- PolyGlot understands the two main GUI protocols: UCI and xboard. Nor-
- mally the protocol will be auto detected but this can be overridden in
- the configuration file.
+ PolyGlot understands the two main GUI protocols: UCI and xboard.
+ Normally the protocol will be auto detected but this can be overridden
+ in the configuration file.
In xboard mode PolyGlot fully translates between the xboard and UCI
protocols. In addition it tries to solve known problems with other
engine and vice versa, except that it will play book moves on behalf of
the engine when the occasion arises.
- The engine options are exported as UCI options in UCI mode and as "fea-
- ture option=" commands in xboard mode. The latter form an extension of
- the xboard protocol as defined by H.G. Muller.
+ The engine options are exported as UCI options in UCI mode and as
+ "feature option=" commands in xboard mode. The latter form an extension
+ of the xboard protocol as defined by H.G. Muller.
Options which normally appear in the [PolyGlot] section of the config
file (see below) are exported as options with their name prefixed by
Book making utilities
PolyGlot supports the "PolyGlot opening book format". This is the
- defacto standard non-proprietary opening book format. It is fully docu-
- mented here
+ defacto standard non-proprietary opening book format. It is fully
+ documented here
http://alpha.uhasselt.be/Research/Algebra/Toga/book_format.html
.abk format are undocumented and proprietary. They can only be used by
their own GUIs.
- PolyGlot can compile a pgn file into a binary PolyGlot book and fur-
- thermore it can merge two such binary books into a third one.
+ PolyGlot can compile a pgn file into a binary PolyGlot book and
+ furthermore it can merge two such binary books into a third one.
PolyGlot can also extract some useful information from PolyGlot books.
The utility "dump-book" dumps the "lines" in a book for a given color.
- By definition a line is a sequence of moves (from the starting posi-
- tion) in which the given color makes only book moves and the other
+ By definition a line is a sequence of moves (from the starting
+ position) in which the given color makes only book moves and the other
color makes arbitrary moves (i.e. not necessarily book moves).
Since a PolyGlot book is built up from positions and not lines there
Epd test mode
In epd test mode, PolyGlot will search positions in an epd file and
- record the number of times the right best move was found. The argu-
- ments specify when to stop the search in any given position.
+ record the number of times the right best move was found. The
+ arguments specify when to stop the search in any given position.
Perft counts
A perft count is the number of legal move sequence in a given position
- up to a given depth. PolyGlot can perform such perft counts. It is how-
- ever much slower than other more dedicated programs.
+ up to a given depth. PolyGlot can perform such perft counts. It is
+ however much slower than other more dedicated programs.
OPTIONS
When PolyGlot is invoked as an adapter of in epd-test mode it gets its
Input file in PolyGlot book format.
-exact
- Attempt to count the provably unreachable positions among the iso-
- lated ones. Note that this takes a very long time.
+ Attempt to count the provably unreachable positions among the
+ isolated ones. Note that this takes a very long time.
When invoked as
The characters "#" and ";" serve as comment characters.
- By default initial and final white space is stripped from option val-
- ues. If you want to avoid this, or if you want use one of the comment
- characters # or ; in option values (such as for NalimovPath), enclose
- the value in quotes.
+ Initial and final white space is stripped from option names and values.
+ If you need to use characters which have a special meaning to PolyGlot
+ (these are ';#[]=\') you should quote them by preceding them with '\'.
+ "Quoting" other characters in this way has no effect. In particular the
+ use of '\' as a path separator in windows should normally not affected.
[PolyGlot] section
EngineCommand
Put here the name of the engine executable file. You can also add
command-line arguments. Path searching is used and the current
- directory will be "EngineDir".
+ directory will be "EngineDir". On Linux the EngineCommand is passed
+ to wordexp so that shell quoting rules and expansions are applied.
+ On Windows the EngineCommand is simply passed to CreateProcess
+ which does its own shell like processing.
SettingsDir (default: $HOME/.polyglot on Linux; ".\_PG" on Windows)
The directory where ini files are stored for engines that are
move are ignored.
ResignScore (default: 600)
- This is the score in centipawns that will trigger resign "count-
- ing".
+ This is the score in centipawns that will trigger resign
+ "counting".
ShowPonder (default: true)
Show search information during engine pondering. Turning this off
move).
KibitzCommand (default: "tellall")
- xboard command to use for kibitzing, normally "tellall" for kibitz-
- ing or "tellothers" for whispering.
+ xboard command to use for kibitzing, normally "tellall" for
+ kibitzing or "tellothers" for whispering.
KibitzDelay (default: 5)
How many seconds to wait before starting kibitzing. This has an
BookFile (default: book.bin)
The name of the (binary) book file. Note that PolyGlot will look
for it in the directory it was launched from, not in the engine
- directory. Of course, full path can be used in which case the cur-
- rent directory does not matter.
+ directory. Of course, full path can be used in which case the
+ current directory does not matter.
BookRandom (default: true)
Select moves according to their weights in the book. If false the
move with the highest weight is selected.
BookLearn (default: false)
- Store learning information in the book (which must be writable).
- Currently no engine actually uses this information.
+ This is a noop.
BookDepth (default: 256)
Stop using the book after this number of moves.
This a bit vector in which each bit represents the processors that
a process is allowed to run on. This option works only on Windows.
+ STFudge (default: 20)
+ PolyGlot will translate "st x" as "go movetime 1000*x-STFudge".
+ The rationale is that in the UCI specification the argument of
+ movetime is defined as the exact search time whereas the argument
+ of the st command is only an upperbound.
+
OnlyWbOptions (default: true)
If true then PolyGlot restricts the options it sends to those that
are potentially useful for WinBoard.
only when necessary. Their purpose is to try to hide problems with
various software (not just engines).
- IMPORTANT: Any of these work arounds might be removed in future ver-
- sions of PolyGlot. You are strongly recommended to contact the author
- of faulty software and truly fix the problem.
+ IMPORTANT: Any of these work arounds might be removed in future
+ versions of PolyGlot. You are strongly recommended to contact the
+ author of faulty software and truly fix the problem.
PolyGlot supports the following work arounds:
CanPonder (default: false)
PolyGlot now conforms to the documented UCI behaviour: the engine
will be allowed to ponder only if it (the engine) declares the
- "Ponder" UCI option. However some engines which can actually pon-
- der do not declare the option. This work around lets PolyGlot know
- that they can ponder.
+ "Ponder" UCI option. However some engines which can actually
+ ponder do not declare the option. This work around lets PolyGlot
+ know that they can ponder.
SyncStop (default: false)
- When a ponder miss occurs, Polyglot interrupts the engine and IMME-
- DIATELY launches a new search. While there should be no problem
- with this, some engines seem confused and corrupt their search
- board. "SyncStop" forces PolyGlot to wait for the (now useless)
- ponder search to finish before launching the new search.
+ When a ponder miss occurs, Polyglot interrupts the engine and
+ IMMEDIATELY launches a new search. While there should be no
+ problem with this, some engines seem confused and corrupt their
+ search board. "SyncStop" forces PolyGlot to wait for the (now
+ useless) ponder search to finish before launching the new search.
PromoteWorkAround (default: false)
Some engines do not specify a promotion piece, e.g. they send
UCI form). You can add any UCI option that makes sense to the engine
(not just the common options about hash-table size and tablebases).
- NOTE: use INI syntax, not UCI. For example "OwnBook = true" is cor-
- rect. It will be replaced by PolyGlot with "setoption name OwnBook
+ NOTE: use INI syntax, not UCI. For example "OwnBook = true" is
+ correct. It will be replaced by PolyGlot with "setoption name OwnBook
value true" at engine startup.
Standard UCI options are
xboard -fcp fruit -fUCI
- An explicit command line for using the UCI engine "fruit" with 128M
- hash in xboard with logging enabled (this also works on xboard 4.2.7).
+ An explicit command line for using the UCI engine "fruit" with logging
+ enabled (this works also with older versions of xboard).
- xboard -fcp "polyglot -noini -log -ec fruit -hash 128"
+ xboard -fcp "polyglot -noini -log true -ec fruit"
The equivalent config file would be:
EngineCommand = fruit
Log = true
[Engine]
- Hash=128
Compile "games.pgn" into a book "book.bin" retaining all lines of at
most 30 plies.
- 2009-09-11 POLYGLOT(6)
+ 2011-06-01 POLYGLOT(6)
projects / polyglot.git / blobdiff