hoichess(6)

📦
version 0.22.0 · 4 versions
, in ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing

💖 hoichess — the manual, but make it cute 💖

okay bestie, sit down, we're learning about hoichess and hoixiangqi, the chess engines from the hoichess(6) manual (that's the games section, iykyk) and honestly? it's giving iconic. ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

hoichess — an xboard compatible chess engine. no cap.

hoixiangqi — a xiangqi engine. yes she's a whole separate girlie but same family 🫶

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

hoichess [options]
hoixiangqi [options]

that's literally it. so simple. so clean. 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so hoichess is a chess playing program. she implements major parts of the xboard/winboard chess engine protocol — like, the big important chunks of it. 💖

and she's not doing it in a lazy way either. hoichess uses many of the standard techniques found in modern chess programs, including:

  • rotated bitboards
  • principal variation search
  • quiescence search
  • transposition table
  • iterative deepening

main character energy fr fr 👑

check xboard(6) for instructions about how to use hoichess through xboard. and if you wanna start up quickly (bestie we all do), you literally just need this command:

xboard -fcp hoichess

that's it. that's the whole vibe check. ✨

hoixiangqi is a xiangqi ("Chinese chess") playing program. recent versions of xboard also support xiangqi:

xboard -fcp hoixiangqi

and here's the cute part — hoichess and hoixiangqi are built from the same code base, so nearly all commands and options, as well as the text based user interface, are the same for both programs. sisters. twins. matching outfits. 💕

if you run hoichess or hoixiangqi at the command line, the help command gives you a brief summary of available commands. so if you're lost, just ask her, she'll tell you. 🧚

at program start, a default startup file is read. this file is called hoichess.rc or hoixiangqi.rc, respectively. it's searched for in these directories, in order: 1. current directory 2. $HOME/.hoichess 3. $USERPROFILE/.hoichess (only on Windows) 4. DATADIR only the first found file is read. (so if you got one in your current dir, that's the one she's reading, periodt.) the DATADIR is installation dependent, commonly /usr/share/games/hoichess.

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -h, --help — display usage information. when you need a little hand-holding, no shame 🫶
  • -V, --version — display version information. she'll tell you who she is 💅
  • -v, --verbose[=n] — increase verbosity. multiple -v options may be given. --verbose=n sets verbosity level n. more -v, more talking. she's chatty like that 💬
  • -d, --debug[=n] — increase debug level. multiple -d options may be given. --debug=n sets debug level n. for when you need the ✨inner monologue✨
  • -x, --xboard[=arg] — start in xboard compatible mode. this turns off the input prompt and alters the output format to meet the requirements of the xboard protocol. normally, this option should not be necessary because hoichess automatically detects when it is started under xboard. (she's perceptive like that 👀)

the optional argument can be one of:

  • off — force non-xboard mode.
  • on — force xboard mode.
  • --source filename — before accepting input from stdin, first read commands (and probably moves) from filename. can be given multiple times. it's giving "let me finish my little script first" 📜
  • --initcmd command — execute command at startup. the command is executed before reading script files given by the --source option. can be given multiple times.
  • --norc — do not read default startup file hoichess.rc or hoixiangqi.rc. no rc, no rules, we're free 💀
  • --color arg — control usage of ANSI color control sequences, e.g. when displaying the chess board. (yes she can serve looks 🌈)

arg can be one of:

  • off — never use ANSI color sequences.
  • on — always use ANSI color sequences.
  • auto — automatically use ANSI color sequences when stdout is a terminal.

on Unix platforms, the default is auto. on Windows platforms, the default is off, because the Windows terminal is normally not ANSI capable. (Windows catching strays, sorry bestie 😭)

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

👑 AUTHOR 👑

hoichess was written by Holger Ruckdeschel <holger@hoicher.de>. king behavior. we love to see it 💜

this manual page was generated with pod2man(1). ✨

and that's the whole manual bestie — hoichess-0.22.0, dated 2024-04-18, and she came to you from the hoichess(6) page in the games section. now go play some chess, you're literally so ready 🎀♟️💖
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