Question about Xboard, Zippy and Freechess.org

[Daniel Uranga]

Im triying to get RataAeroespacial playing on freechess.org through Xboard. So I enter "seek 3 0 m" (for example) on the console it starts playing ok, but i want to automatically try to get another game when current game ends (using zippyGameEnd option), but it doesnt work.

I call Xboard this way:

Code: Select all

./xboard -fcp /home/dan/workspace/RataAeroespacial/Release/RataAeroespacial -zp -ics -icshost freechess.org -xrm '*zippyGameEnd: seek 3 0\n'


Freechess.org console output is:

Code: Select all

...
Creating: GuestZJPQ (++++) GuestTMYC (++++) unrated blitz 5 5
{Game 220 (GuestZJPQ vs. GuestTMYC) Creating unrated blitz match.}

{Game 220 (GuestZJPQ vs. GuestTMYC) GuestZJPQ resigns} 0-1

No ratings adjustment done.
fics% gameend: Command not found.
...


Im using Xboard master-20100806 (donwloaded from git repository), and running Ubuntu Linux.
Thanks in advance.

[H.G.Muller]

I never looked how the -xrm option works. An alternative is to use the default gameend string, and alias it on the server:

alias gameend seek 3 0

[Daniel Uranga]

Thanks hgm! I ended using: "alias gameend seek 3 0 m" (I think the last "m" is important, not really sure). And it works Ok now.
Now i have another problem, when my engine's opponent loses on time Xboard crashes with a "segmentation fault", it happens with RataAeroespacial and Olithink, I dont tested other engines.
Im always playing with guest account for testing.

[H.G.Muller]

Yes, there was a recent version where I introduced this bug. Just download an even more recent version, because it is already fixed.

I had been overhauling the clock-handling code, introducing several new types of time control (multi-session and stuff like that). In this new setup a "so many minutes total" session needs not be the last session of a multi-session TC. It would be sudden-death if it was (as always), but if there is a session after it, that session is started after it times out. (Shogi is usually played with this type of TC, where the next session then is fixed maximum time per move.) Everything seemed to work, so I had pushed it to the repository, but I had not tested t in ICS play. There the TC is set by other code (when it is received from the ICS), and the string that contains the multi-session description (in PGN format) was not initialized, causing a crash when it tries to figure out if it should call the flag, or if another session follows.

[Daniel Uranga]

Thanks again, only a last cuestion. How do I do the "git clone" from "http://hgm.nubati.net", i cant find the .git file. I am using "git://git.sv.gnu.org/xboard.git", but i dont know if it is as updated as the other repository.

[H.G.Muller]

Unfortunately I know little about git. Only what Arun taught me, which is just enough to commit my changes and push them to hgm.nubati.net. What you ask is beyond my knowledge.

In general commits I make to hgm.nubati.net should be transferred by Arun within a week to Savannah. So the hgm.nubati.net is in general somewhat more up to date, but only in so far the patches are from my hand. (Which, in the development branch, has been the case for about 95%, the past two years.) Patches made by Arun or others will only make it to hgm.nubati.net when I resync with Savannah, which I do just before starting a new branch. (Which is about as frequent as when we release new stable versions.)

[Daniel Uranga]

Ok, i will wait a couple of days and then download from Savannah.
It may be useful for people like me to make hgm.nubati.net .git file publicy avalaible (just a suggestion).
Thanks for the information and your time.

[H.G.Muller]

It is possible to download a snapshots from the hgm.nubati.net repository. just click 'snapshot' next to the commit you want in the log, and you will get a tar ball of the tree after that commit.

[Daniel Uranga]

Latest snapshot from hgm.nubati.net works OK. Now I will see how RataAeroespacial does in fics!
You're doing an excellent work with Xboard Mr. Muller, thank you in name of the community.

[H.G.Muller]

I just discovered that at Savannah the WinBoard master branch is badly broken, and consequenty also all commits in the hgm6 branch of my hgm.nubat repository, which appends to a recent sync with Savannah. Problem is that Arun committed a patch that replaces all strcpy by safeStrCpy, but in many (most?) cases does not pass the correct size of the target buffer to safeStrCpy, so that only 3 characters are copied. So none of the things that involved copying do not work anymore (e.g. copying games or positions from the clipboard; I fixed copying things to the clipboard yesterday).

[H.G.Muller]

I transferred all my recent changes to the hgm5 branch. The latest snapshot there should now be a Savannah-free version that can be trusted.