NAME

       uci2wb - Protocol adapter for UCI dialects to XBoard

SYNOPSIS

       uci2wb [debug] [-var <variant>] [-nice <priority>] [-kill <delay>] [-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 through an explicit -c argument, it 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.

       -nice <priority>
               Runs the engine processes at the requested priority; positive values lower the priority.

       -kill <delay>
               Increases  the  time  between  receiving  a  'quit' command and killing of an engine process that
               somehow could not be made to exit through the normal handling of this (50 ms by default)  by  the
               specified delay.

       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.

SEE ALSO

       xboard(6)

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).

perl v5.40.0                                       2024-12-17                                          UCI2WB(6)