PGN-EXTRACT(1)

📦
version 24.11 · 2 versions
, in fedora 43, fedora 44

💖 NAME 💖

pgn-extract — a Portable Game Notation (PGN) extractor, bestie. That's the whole vibe: it pulls chess games out of PGN files.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

pgn-extract [flags] file.pgn [file.pgn ...]

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

Okay so, pgn-extract is a free, open-source program — yes literally, no cap — and it's built to support the processing, searching and extraction of chess games from files written in PGN format. 💅

And the way you tell it what to extract?? Multiple options, all iconic:

  • textual move sequences
  • the position reached after a sequence of moves
  • information in the tag fields
  • material balance in the ending

Full ANSI C source and a 32-bit Windows binary for the program are available under the terms of the GNU General Public License. 👑

Also the program includes a semantic analyser which will report errors in game scores, and it can also detect duplicate games found in one or more of its input files. So it's not just pretty, it's smart. 🧠✨

The range of input move formats it accepts is fairly wide — it recognises lower-case piece letters for English and upper-case piece letters for Dutch and German. Default output is in English Standard Algebraic Notation (SAN), though there's some support for output in different notations too. 🌈

Extracted games may be written out either including or excluding comments, NAGs, and variations. Games may be given ECO classifications derived from the accompanying file eco.pgn, or a customised version provided by the user. 🦋

Plus — and this is the part that ate — lots of other useful features that have gradually found their way into what was once a relatively simple program! 😭💖

🌸 OPTIONS 🌸

Run pgn-extract -h to get all the options. (Yes, just that. Go ask it yourself, she'll tell you. 🙈)

A complete description of each option can be found in /usr/share/doc/pgn-extract/help.html. 📖✨

💜 AUTHOR 💜

pgn-extract was written by David J. Barnes <d.j.barnes@kent.ac.uk>.

This manual page was written by Peter van Rossum <petervr@debian.org> and Vincent Legout <vlegout@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system.

okay that's the whole page, ily, go extract some games 🫶♟️

— signed off with the date May 31, 2024, from your friendly neighbourhood pgn-extract manual, General Commands Manual, section 1. periodt. 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from