Alaric UCI book problem

[Gábor Szots]

Hi Peter,

I've installed Alaric under Arena as a UCI engine. As there is no UCI parameter for book usage I thought I'd clear the name from the book box. I also set it to use Arena's main book instead. However, when there are no more book moves left, Alaric sends a message "book_open(): can't open file ": No such file or directory" and it does not move.

No such problem when the WinBoard version is used, setting book=0 in the ini file.

Have a good taste of wine,

[Peter Fendrich]

Hello Gabor,
The GUI should have a general way to turn off the book.
In Arena there is an 'UCI' tab under the Engine management.
"Engines use their own book" can be unticked.
The problem is of course that this is for all UCI engines.

You can also create an empty file and use that as a book.

Hope this solves your problem until next release.

/Peter

[Gábor Szots]

Hello Gabor,
The GUI should have a general way to turn off the book.
In Arena there is an 'UCI' tab under the Engine management.
"Engines use their own book" can be unticked.
The problem is of course that this is for all UCI engines.

You can also create an empty file and use that as a book.

Hope this solves your problem until next release.

/Peter

Hello Peter,

I was aware of the possibilities you recommend here, e.g. unticking the own book box solves the problem indeed. I intended my message as a bug report.

Creating an empty book file did not occur to me as in my experience there are engines that don't accept anything as a book file even if it is given the right book name.

[Daniel Mehrmann]

Hi Peter !

Your UCI engine doesn't offer this feature to the GUI !
So all GUI following the strict UCI way, Arena has somewhat it's own UCI support, won't disable the book.

Pretty dangerous for all ChessBase/Shredder classic GUI tester around there with Noon positions.

I just suggest do not develop your UCI support with Arena.
You'll learn wrong ways anyway, which might be hard to forget if the normal UCI world comes...

Btw. Congrats to your new baby Alaric. Pretty good job !!!
I'm impressed...

Best,
Daniel

[Peter Fendrich]

So all GUI following the strict UCI way, Arena has somewhat it's own UCI support, won't disable the book.

Hi Daniel,
What is strict or is not really clear in the protocol...
I have no other UCI GUI than Arena and do not intend to buy any!

The OwnBook option is a bit of a problem (at least in Arena). If I send it as an option to Arena it will not show up in the configuration window. If the user want to to turn it off it has to be done for all UCI engines. That means that I have to supply another option, say useBook true/false. Now this must be very confusing for the user, which one, OwnBook or UseBook have presedence. The best thing would be if the GUI let OwnBook show up in the configuration window for each engine. I don't know how this is handled by Shredder et al. but I hope they do like that. Right now I give an error message for a blank bookname. I will cange that to mean "no book" in the future. That should please both Arena and ChessBase I think!
/Peter

[Daniel Mehrmann]

So all GUI following the strict UCI way, Arena has somewhat it's own UCI support, won't disable the book.

Hi Daniel,
What is strict or is not really clear in the protocol...
I have no other UCI GUI than Arena and do not intend to buy any!

The OwnBook option is a bit of a problem (at least in Arena). If I send it as an option to Arena it will not show up in the configuration window. If the user want to to turn it off it has to be done for all UCI engines.

Yes, the "own book" handling seems unlucky in Arena.
But there are options for each engine in other GUI's!

However, a unlucky handling by one GUI, which has a well known none strict UCI support (if not to say bad), is no reason for a protocol violation by the engine.

Maybe this sounds hard, yes, it is. This is the result, i was warning Martin Blume and Frank Quisinsky, if they go her own UCI way. In fact, they think its been better for UCI rookie's if the GUI allow this or that. Yes its better for a rookie and maybe allow an easy start, but if the engine leave the "Arena" world they gets massive trouble with other GUI's.

But that's not your problem. Sorry. Just wanna explain why i'm going a "hard line" here.

Best,
Daniel

[Graham Banks]

That should please both Arena and ChessBase I think!
/Peter

No problems under Chessbase that I can see.

[Daniel Mehrmann]

That should please both Arena and ChessBase I think!
/Peter

No problems under Chessbase that I can see.

Well, there is a problem anyway. i don't tested it under CB yet, but i know it.

Try a short book (.ctg), lets say 6-8 moves standard openings.

Other engines should searching after the last bookmove, with or without own book.

Alaric still use his own book because it doesn't tell the GUI it has a own Book. So, the GUI can't disable it for a fair match.

btw Idon't say Alaric is cheating here. It just works for Peter under Arena, but it doesn't work under other gui's. Peter didn't knows that !


Best,
Daniel

[Peter Fendrich]

So all GUI following the strict UCI way, Arena has somewhat it's own UCI support, won't disable the book.

Hi Daniel,
What is strict or is not really clear in the protocol...
I have no other UCI GUI than Arena and do not intend to buy any!

The OwnBook option is a bit of a problem (at least in Arena). If I send it as an option to Arena it will not show up in the configuration window. If the user want to to turn it off it has to be done for all UCI engines.

Yes, the "own book" handling seems unlucky in Arena.
But there are options for each engine in other GUI's!

However, a unlucky handling by one GUI, which has a well known none strict UCI support (if not to say bad), is no reason for a protocol violation by the engine.

Maybe this sounds hard, yes, it is. This is the result, i was warning Martin Blume and Frank Quisinsky, if they go her own UCI way. In fact, they think its been better for UCI rookie's if the GUI allow this or that. Yes its better for a rookie and maybe allow an easy start, but if the engine leave the "Arena" world they gets massive trouble with other GUI's.

But that's not your problem. Sorry. Just wanna explain why i'm going a "hard line" here.

Best,
Daniel

I am not sure what you are trying to tell me but the UCI protocol is unclear here. From the text:
"Note that not every option needs to appear in this dialog as some options like "Ponder", "UCI_AnalyseMode", etc. are better handled elsewhere or are set automatically. If the user wants to change some settings, the GUI will send a "setoption" command to the engine."
This sentence with the word "etc." makes the protocol unclear. It should be stated clearly which options they mean or even better demand a list of every option that is possible to send to the engine without exceptions.
I can live with that Shredder and Chessbase sets the standard but the protocol should be updated accordingly.
/Peter

[Daniel Mehrmann]

This sentence with the word "etc." makes the protocol unclear. It should be stated clearly which options they mean or even better demand a list of every option that is possible to send to the engine without exceptions.
I can live with that Shredder and Chessbase sets the standard but the protocol should be updated accordingly.
/Peter

Well, a lot of options are static and predefined, this will be explained here:

Certain options have a fixed value for <id>, which means that the semantics of this option is fixed. Usually those options should not be displayed in the normal engine options window of the GUI but get a special treatment. "Pondering" for example should be set automatically when pondering is enabled or disabled in the GUI options.


<id> means name <id> of the options. Stefan started with his paper with static predefined options like:

* <id> = Hash, type is spin
* <id> = NalimovPath, type string
* <id> = NalimovCache, type spin
* <id> = Ponder, type check
* <id> = OwnBook, type check
* <id> = MultiPV, type spin


This means such option should not be displayed in the engine setting dialog. It should be offered somewhere else, like if you start a tourney....

Best,
Daniel






[/b]

[Graham Banks]

Well, there is a problem anyway. i don't tested it under CB yet, but i know it.

Try a short book (.ctg), lets say 6-8 moves standard openings.

Other engines should searching after the last bookmove, with or without own book.

Alaric still use his own book because it doesn't tell the GUI it has a own Book. So, the GUI can't disable it for a fair match.

btw Idon't say Alaric is cheating here. It just works for Peter under Arena, but it doesn't work under other gui's. Peter didn't knows that !


Best,
Daniel

All you need to do is replace the Alaric book with a 0kb book file.
Works perfectly fine - I can post all my Alaric games here to prove it (using the Xmas2640-12.ctg with 12 move limit).

Regards, Graham.

[Daniel Mehrmann]

Well, there is a problem anyway. i don't tested it under CB yet, but i know it.

Try a short book (.ctg), lets say 6-8 moves standard openings.

Other engines should searching after the last bookmove, with or without own book.

Alaric still use his own book because it doesn't tell the GUI it has a own Book. So, the GUI can't disable it for a fair match.

btw Idon't say Alaric is cheating here. It just works for Peter under Arena, but it doesn't work under other gui's. Peter didn't knows that !


Best,
Daniel

All you need to do is replace the Alaric book with a 0kb book file.
Works perfectly fine - I can post all my Alaric games here to prove it (using the Xmas2640-12.ctg with 12 move limit).

Regards, Graham.

Do you do such things allways if you get trouble ?
Serious tester asking the author anyway, do you did that ?

Best,
Daniel

[Peter Fendrich]

* <id> = Hash, type is spin
* <id> = NalimovPath, type string
* <id> = NalimovCache, type spin
* <id> = Ponder, type check
* <id> = OwnBook, type check
* <id> = MultiPV, type spin

This means such option should not be displayed in the engine setting dialog. It should be offered somewhere else, like if you start a tourney....

Maybe we completely agree here but I have a feeling that you missed my point.
In my message above, the dialog refer to the dialog between the GUI and the engine and not the engines setting dialog.

In short: The standard states that the engine don't have to (or shouldn't) send the option Ponder to the GUI and what you suggest here is that the same goes for Ownbook...
We are back to where we started. The standard is unclear whether the engine have to send Ownbook or not and how the GUI should handle it.
/Peter

[Graham Banks]

Do you do such things allways if you get trouble ?
Serious tester asking the author anyway, do you did that ?

Best,
Daniel

Hi Daniel,

for CCRL testing, we use generic books, so if we need to replace the "own book" with a 0kb book file or delete the "own book" file in order to ensure that the "own book" is not being used, that is what we do.

Regards, Graham.