[Toss-devel] Starting vs. Current Structure in .toss Files

[Lukasz K. <luk...@gm...>]

Hi.

Recently, we had some problems with the meaning of the
structure after MODEL in a .toss file. The problem comes
from the fact that some time ago it used to be the *current*
structure - the last state of the play. But since we use play
history, this changed to the *starting* structure of the game.

To make this clear, I changed the .toss file syntax in my
last commit - it now expects "START" instead of "MODEL".

After the above, it should generally be clear - but there is a
looming performance problem. Because now, to reconstruct
the current structure from a .toss state representation, we
need to repeat all the moves. In general, this is fast and not
a problem if the file is used just for saving the games.
But we also use the format for client-server communication
at present - and with 1s for suggest and after 40 moves it
might start to be a problem. My current idea is to make
another printing function, which prints the state together
with a MODEL followed by the current structure - and in
such cases, to use the current one instead of re-making
all moves. But maybe I should change "MODEL" to some
other name, like "CURRENT"? Or maybe some other idea
will be better? Write what you think!

Lukasz