Re: [Scid-users] engine auto-install

[User d. of S. <sci...@li...>]

It seems Gregor Cramer posted a question there, but I have no idea how 
to answer it.
There is no 'submit comment' button on that page. So I just answer it 
through the list:

 > Gregor Cramer <http://sourceforge.net/u/gcramer/>
 > 15 hours ago

 > Where can I find the definition of the file format for an .eng file?

The original proposal for the *.eng format was made here:
http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=53674&start=0

At this point the format is still extremely simple, and I haven't put up 
a separate web page for describing it. (At some point I should certainly 
do this, of course.) So let me give it here. The file should contain 
only 3 lines.

1) The first line should contain the literal phrase:

plugin spec 0.0

This acts as a 'magic phrase' helping to identify the mime type of the file,
plus a version number that tells what to expect in the remainder of it.

2) The second line contains the command needed to launch the engine
in the applicable protocol. For most engines this would be a single word,
the name of the engine binary in /usr/games (or another directory in the
search path). Some engines might need arguments, like

pos --io-mode xboard
gnuchess -x

If the engine must use a specific working directory, a 'cd' command to 
it can be prefixed to the engine command, like

cd /usr/local/share/games/rybka;wine rybka.exe

This should only be needed for non-Linux-compliant engines that do not 
know how to find their data files by themselves.

3) The third line should contain a comma-separated list of supported 
variants or variant groups. An exhaustive list of variant names that can 
be used here will be defined in the next version of the specs, but it is 
already guaranteed that "chess" and "chess960" will be allowed variant 
names. For most engines the third line would be one of

chess
chess960
chess,chess960

in any version of the specs, as they won't be able to play anything 
else. This to get people already going, while being able to contemplate 
at leasure how to specify all these other variants that almost no one 
supports anyway. In any case it is  allowed to put other names in the 
list; it is just that names that do not have an official meaning in the 
version of the specs mentioned in line 1 will likely just be ignored, 
although overzealous GUI developers could try to do something 
constructive with them. No malicious 'undefined behavior' is allowed in 
response to undefined variant names, the worst that could happen should 
be that an engine is registered for use in the GUI that the user perhaps 
did not want or the GUI cannot use when the user selects it.

Whether the engine is UCI or XBoard (CECP) or something else should be 
known from where the .eng file is found.

That is all.


H.G.



User discussion of SCID schreef op 11/25/2014 10:16 PM:
> Dear H.G,
>
> I've submitted the request here:
>
> https://sourceforge.net/p/scid/feature-requests/40/
>
> Thank you for your outstanding work!
>
> Ben
>
>
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