[Chessdb-users] ChessDB now downloading from FICS

[Dr. D. K. <dav...@on...>]

I've recently got ChessDB downloading games from FICS, thanks to quite a
bit of help from Warren Lewis who wrote the code that converts FICS
format output to PGN. It is nice to see several making contributions.

What basically happens is

1) ChessDB connects to FICS via telnet. (ChessDB has its own telnet client)
2) ChessDB sends command to FICS to print the moves of particular player(s).
3) FICS sends back the moves in its own format (smoves)
4) The code Warren wrote converts the smoves format to PGN.
5) ChessDB reads the PGN from memory into a database (there is no need
to save files to PGN).

(This also works for ICC but I've had that working for some time, so
that is not new).

This now means you can pick any player on FICS and download all the
games in their history. The default is to do it for two fairly weak
players (around ~1100 I think), but you can change the user names to
those of GMs if you wish. (GM games are much easier to get anyway, which
is why I made the default two weak players. I will find more suitable
players later, as the two I just chosen seem to play mainly unrated
games, which is not as helpful as it could be. But of course, you can
chose who you want.

Anyway, I have made this available, but only as a CVS checkout just now,
as the code contains several bugs and more than a few rough edges.

To get the *very* latest code, use:


cvs -z3
-d:pserver:ano...@ch...:/cvsroot/chessdb co -P
chessdb

However, you may find that will now work - that is the nature of code in
CVS. So for extra safety, check out a specific version I have tagged
'Version-3_6_18_beta_1' which you can do with:

cvs -z3
-d:pserver:ano...@ch...:/cvsroot/chessdb co -r
Version-3_6_18_beta_1 chessdb

Feedback welcome. I know this is a bit buggy here, and messages are
printed to stdout which one would not normally do. But I thought I'd
make it available, as I will not get too much time over the next few
days to do much, so thought I'd let others have a play. Let me know of
the bugs you find. You may find it necessary to quit ChesDB after
downloading games if you want to change to new players. After logging
out, the next login is not working properly. I will fix that later.

There are a few new items on the Help menu too.


I'll make a real release when I have some time to debug this more.