Ubuntu Manpage: uci2wb - Protocol adapter for UCI dialects to XBoard

NAME

       uci2wb - Protocol adapter for UCI dialects to XBoard

SYNOPSIS

       uci2wb [debug] [-var <variant>] [-c|-s|-x] engine [directory]

DESCRIPTION

       uci2wb is a protocol adapter, i.e. it can be used to run AI plugins ('engines') that
       communicate in one protocol in a GUI that communicates in another.  In this case uci2wb
       can make appear the engine specified in its argument, which must use a protocol similar to
       UCI ('Universal Chess Interface'), to the GUI as an engine using XBoard protocol ('Chess
       Engine Communication Protocol', CECP).

       The protocols for which it can mediate are UCI (both the official standard, as well as the
       'Cyclone dialect' that is commonly used by Chinese-Chess engines, and the 'Arena960
       dialect' used by pre-standard Chess960 engines), USI ('Universal Shogi Interface', used by
       some Shogi engines) and UCCI ('Universal Chinese-Chess Interface').  When set to UCI, it
       automatically uses Cyclone dialect when playing xiangqi games.

OPTIONS

-c -s -x -f
The flag arguments -c (default), -s or -x set uci2wb to use UCI, USI or UCCI,
respectively. If there is more than one character in the flag argument, all
characters but the first are ignored. This can be used by passing uci2wb the full
variant name ('shogi' or 'xiangqi') as a flag, to make it automatically choose the
appropriate protocol (USI or UCCI). Other values also select UCI, but the value
-f in addition implies uci2wb should announce it supports Chess960 even for UCI
engines that don't have the standard UCI_Chess960 option, and in that case causes
castlings to be sent to them as O-O or O-O-O instead of the standard KxR notation.

-var <variant>
Forces uci2wb to announce to the GUI it supports (only) the specified variant.
Although a UCI_Variant option has been proposed as a way for UxI engines to
announce what they can play, (and is supported by uci2wb), not many engines
implement this. So if these are not the standard variants implied by the protocol
choice, (but, f.e. seirawan or 6x6+6_shogi) it has to be configured on the uci2wb
command line through this option.

debug Makes uci2wb report to the GUI everything it receives from the engine, as a CECP
engine comment (i.e. prefixed with '#'). This would make it appear in the GUI's
log of the engine communication. Some critical commands it sends to the engine
(such as the 'position-moves' and 'go' commands) will be reported as well. This
option can also be switched interactively, through the 'UCI2WB debug output'
checkbox option appearing as additional engine option.

directory
If a directory is specified, the engine is started with that directory set as
current directory.

byoyomi work-arounds
Byoyomi is a mode of time control in USI not supported by CECP. Engines can be
forced to run in this mode by letting the GUI use incremental or sudden-death TC,
and ticking the interactive 'Floating Byoyomi' checkbox option that uci2wb pools
with the engine options. An accompanying option 'Byoyomi (sec)' allows you to
force a fixed value >= 0 for the byoyomi to be sent to the engine when 'Floating
Byoyomi' is off.

AVAILABILITY

       At http://hgm.nubati.net/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi the source code can be obtained.

STANDARDS

       WinBoard, xboard(6) interface ("Chess Engine Communication Protocol")

       UCI specs:
       http://www.shredderchess.com/chess-info/features/uci-universal-chess-interface.html

       USI specs: http://hgm.nubati.net/usi.html

       UCCI specs: http://www.xqbase.com/protocol/cchess_ucci.htm

AUTHOR

       H.G.Muller <h.g.muller@hccnet.nl>.

       This manual page was generated with pod2man(1).