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Subject: Re: XCI (Extensible Chess Interface) new draft

Author: Michael Yee

Date: 04:11:44 03/19/05

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On March 18, 2005 at 20:40:18, Dann Corbit wrote:

>If you create a formal grammar, it should be possible to create parsers and
>lexers from it.
>
>If some standardized parser and lexer were developed, they could be used by
>any/all chess programmers who chose to do so.
>
>I think it would be a big step forward.

This is a nice idea. I guess taking it to the extreme would be providing the I/O
handling for certain languages and defining an "interface" (in the java/c#
sense) that the engine needs to implement.

This is what I'm doing for my own engine anyway. I have 3 main pieces:

- a thread that blocks on input
- a "protocol handler" that parses the input and calls appropriate methods of an
engine implementing an "engine interface"; (the "protocol handler" also formats
the output from the engine)
- an engine that implements the "engine interface" (and manages itself in its
own thread)

The protocol handler can be Winboard, UCI, XCI, console, etc.

So providing a reference/standard "XCI protocol handler" that makes calls to a
standard "engine interface" would be nice.

>
>It would be good (also) to have compatibility code to run in Winboard mode and
>in UCI mode also, for the transition.
>
>IMO-YMMV

Yes, if my own gui ever decides to show itself, I plan on supporting WB2 and
UCI. Because winboard and UCI are nearly subsets of XCI, I don't think it should
be too hard to make the internal "adapters".

Michael



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