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Subject: Re: When PGN goes wrong? My list of the 18 most common PGN sins

Author: Francesco Di Tolla

Date: 02:36:30 10/19/00

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On October 18, 2000 at 13:41:49, Richard A. Fowell wrote:
> 1) wraps movetext lines to less or more than the required 79 character maximum
> 2) Omits required empty line after movetext (especially at end of file)
> 3) Omits required empty line separating tags from movetext
> 4) Tags not in required order (standard seven in std order, then alphabetic)
> 5) Omits the space after the periods, e.g. "1.e4" instead of "1. e4".
> 6) Inserts non-PGN lines, before/between PGN games in PGN file [TWIC does this]
> 7) Fails to use the "#" to indicate checkmate (uses "+", "++", or no marker)
> 8) Extra spaces added to make move columns line up prettily (ICC used to)
> 9) Uses lower case "o" or zeros instead of upper case "O" in "O-O" and "O-O-O"
>10) Ending token ( such as 1-0) is omitted, or conflicts with Result tag.
>11) Use of "1/2" rather than "1/2-1/2" in Result tag or ending token.
>12) Omits the periods in the movetext
>13) Non-standard promotion indicators (such as b8Q or B8(Q) vs. b8=Q )
>14) Date tag in non-standard format ( 10/31/2000 or 10.31.2000 vs 2000.10.31)
>15) "ep" or "e.p." added after en passant capture
>16) Uses coordinate notation (e2e4 or e2-e4) rather than SAN
>17) Uses long algebraic notation: like Ng1-f3, rather than SAN
>18) Inserts a blank in front of # ( "21. Qa8 #" vs. "21. Qa8#")

I think that other common problems are: the mess in the variations (this is due
to the weakness of the standard on this side) and also the abuse/misuse of some
nags: many progrmas don't handle them properly, e.g. Chess Assistant even uses
some extra signs that other programs don't understand.


regards
Franz



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