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Subject: Re: Ten years later: revising EPD/FEN/PGN

Author: Odd Gunnar Malin

Date: 01:46:05 09/12/03

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On September 10, 2003 at 15:59:46, Dieter Buerssner wrote:

>Not sure, whether this was mentioned already.
>
>am and bm upcodes take a list of SAN moves, that should be alphabetically
>sorted. Why the sorting?

I agree, the natural order would be (for bm) in the order with best move first
as the author think it is. But this could of course be subjective so any order
must be allowed.

>
>Now and then, one sees EPD records, which have both, am and bm. It makes it
>ambigious for testsuites (When is the position solved?). Perhaps a note, to only
>have one of those 2 upcodes would be in order. The other one could be used in a
>comment. For example the testsuite author may mean: this am loses soon, and
>should be avoided. Best seems this bm. The bm should then be in a comment. Or
>the author really means: bm is best, am is really horrible. So the am should be
>in a comment, and the position could be considered solved only when the bm is
>found.

A sample.

quiz
!diagram!
3 point for Bxf7!
but -10 for taking the queen with bxc5 because of Rb1#

Some books for human have quiz like this. It isn't good enough to play 39 good
moves if the 40. move is a big blunder.

If epd is only for engine analysis this isn't so important but if an
epd-database is used as a db for a gui meant for human to solve then I think
both am and bm have to be allowed in the same string.


Other things:

There seems to be a need for a null move from an annotators view (Threaten with
Bxc6).

Also how to add a variation after last move. Including last move in the
variation looks awful ( 43.Rxb2 Resign because if 43...Kxb2 then 44.Bd4#). This
could maybe be solved in the presentation software and keep last move in the
variation.

The escape mechanism (%) is only allowed in the start of a line, why not allow
it inside a comment to make rest of this comment to belong to the escape
sequence.

Odd Gunnar



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