Author: Bob Green
Date: 16:55:18 09/10/01
Go up one level in this thread
On September 10, 2001 at 13:37:48, Dann Corbit wrote:
>On September 10, 2001 at 13:19:37, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>
>>The PGN standard seems to be owned by Steven J. Edwards. The standard is
>>extremely important, and he hasn't made any changes to it for the past several
>>years, so there is now an attempt to declare him unimportant and change the
>>spec.
>>
>>A post detailing these changes was submitted to r.g.c.c. a few days ago. The
>>changes are being authored by:
>>
>>Alan Cowderoy (Palamede), Ben Bulsink (DGT Projects), Andrew
>>Templeton(Palamede/Palview), Eric Bentzen (Enpassant.dk, Palamede), Mathias
>>Feist
>>(Chessbase), Victor Zakharov (Chess Assistant).
>>
<big snip/>
>>
>>Is this the way the PGN standard should go?
>
>I have not read the posts on r.g.c.c yet. The above change does not seem to
>hold much value, that I can see. I suggest the following:
>1. Attempt to contact SJE, and propose changes.
>2. Try to work with him instead of ignoring him.
>
>I doubt if you can simply toss him aside and create a new PGN standard. I am
>speaking of copyright priviledge. After all, he is the author of the document.
>
>On the other hand, a new standard could be created from scratch.
First off, I'm an XML bigot. But that doesn't necessarily make the following
wrong :)
I think PGN could be improved and made **much** more flexible by creating a new
standard from scratch using XML Schema. Converting a text-based XML document to
information usable in your program (viewer, game engine, whatever) is very
easy; there are XML parsers in every language known to (pick the diety of your
choice.)
XML obviates the issue above - you don't "break" the existing XML standard when
you extend it to include new features - the "X" in XML is for eXtensible after
all.
For those of you unfamiliar with XML your could take the simple example from the
beginning of the PGN standard found at:
http://www.schachprobleme.de/chessml/faq/pgn/
which is:
[Event "F/S Return Match"]
[Site "Belgrade, Serbia JUG"]
[Date "1992.11.04"]
[Round "29"]
[White "Fischer, Robert J."]
[Black "Spassky, Boris V."]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3
O-O 9. h3 Nb8 10. d4 Nbd7 11. c4 c6 12. cxb5 axb5 13. Nc3 Bb7 14. Bg5 b4 15.
Nb1 h6 16. Bh4 c5 17. dxe5 Nxe4 18. Bxe7 Qxe7 19. exd6 Qf6 20. Nbd2 Nxd6 21.
Nc4 Nxc4 22. Bxc4 Nb6 23. Ne5 Rae8 24. Bxf7+ Rxf7 25. Nxf7 Rxe1+ 26. Qxe1 Kxf7
27. Qe3 Qg5 28. Qxg5 hxg5 29. b3 Ke6 30. a3 Kd6 31. axb4 cxb4 32. Ra5 Nd5 33.
f3 Bc8 34. Kf2 Bf5 35. Ra7 g6 36. Ra6+ Kc5 37. Ke1 Nf4 38. g3 Nxh3 39. Kd2 Kb5
40. Rd6 Kc5 41. Ra6 Nf2 42. g4 Bd3 43. Re6 1/2-1/2
and convert it to XML after first defining the schema by which the XML document
should follow. However, the following XML document should be readable and
understandable by most (including every computer with an XML parser!):
<game>
<event>
<evntName>F/S Return Match</evntName>
<round>29</round>
</event>
<date>1992.11.04</date>
<site>
<city>Belgrade</city>
<country>Serbia JUG</country>
</site>
<white>
<firstName>Robert</firstName>
<middleName>J</middleName>
<lastName>Fischer</lastName>
</white>
<black>
<firstName>Boris</firstName>
<middleName>V</middleName>
<lastName>Spassky</lastName>
</black>
<result>1/2-1/2</result>
<turn>1
<Wmove>e4</Wmove>
<Bmove>e5</Bmove>
</turn>
<turn>2
<Wmove>Nf3</Wmove>
<Bmove>Nc6</Bmove>
</turn>
...
</game>
Yep, this standard would be a **whole** lot more chatty...that is the biggest
downside of XML. But the fact that any ol' computer can read it w/o writing a
bunch of code is the upside and humans can still follow it pretty well.
The existing PGN notation schema (i.e. the rules to follow when writing a PGN
document) could be converted to an XML Schema fairly simply - let's call this
new XML language PGN-XML. Since it is a new language we could throw in some
bones to non-chess games as well (no problem since XML is intrinsically
extensible.) An add some tags for clock control...optional naturally.
Then some sharp cats could write a PGN to PGN-XML converter.
In any event, this is a radical approach to a simple extention to the PGN
standard. Does anyone besides me see some merit in this?
Bob Green
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.