Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Legal move list - local or global variable?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 15:13:32 05/13/02

Go up one level in this thread


On May 13, 2002 at 12:47:19, Miguel A. Ballicora wrote:

>On May 13, 2002 at 11:20:56, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On May 13, 2002 at 00:22:28, Russell Reagan wrote:
>>
>>>If I have one legal move array, will that work for searching recursively? For
>>>example, in AlphaBeta() where it says GenerateLegalMoves(), if I have a global
>>>variable that won't work, at least it doesn't seem like it would, because you
>>>would be writing over the moves from previous plys. So it would seem like you
>>>would need a local variable for this. But in TSCP it looks like Tom used a
>>>global legal move list in gen_dat[] but he also has a first_move[] array that
>>>could do something to make this work. I think I get the general idea, but I'm
>>>not very clear on it.
>>>
>>>It seems like a simpler solution would be to use a local variable inside
>>>AlphaBeta() to store the legal moves, then they would be saved on the stack
>>>during recursive calls. Is there any downside to this method?
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>Russell
>>
>>
>>You can use a global array, but for each ply of search, you need an index into
>>this table that is different.  IE ply1 could go from entry 0 to 41, ply 2 could
>>then go from entry 42 to 100, etc...
>>
>>Not a good idea if you plan on doing a threaded (SMP) search, of course...
>
>You could have one of these structures per thread and pass the address in a
>pointer. If all the global structures needed in a program are in one big
>structure only one pointer will be needed to pass. I am not doing SMP, but
>in the multithreaded approach I am using (one thread is the interface, the other
>is the engine) that is what I do. The interface has their own board to check
>legality etc. and the the engine has their own board to "think".
>I thought that this may work in an SMP program. Is there any serious drawback?
>
>Miguel


No.  The only problem would be a _single_ global move list, which would be
a problem.  A set of structures, all global, with a move list in each, is
basically what I do (I use an array of structures myself, with an array
element used by each thread)...



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.