Winboard/Java help.

[Dan Honeycutt]

Hi all,

I've been trying to learn some Java programming. I thought a good exercise would be to write a simple engine. I started with a really simple one just to see if I could 'talk' to winboard. All the program does is get two winboard commands and send a message back. I built my .jar file and copied it to my winboard directory. I then opened a cmd prompt, navigated to the winboard folder and ran my program with:

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java -jar moron.jar

Everything worked fine. Next I entered:

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winboard.exe -cp -fcp "java -jar moron.jar" -scp "java -jar moron.jar" -debug

I got Startup failure on 'java -jar moron.jar': The System cannot find the file specified. I'm not sure who can't find what. I verified that there is a java.exe in my path. I'm probably missing something obvious but damned if I can see what it is.

The winboard debug file and a listing of my program are below. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Dan H.

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WinBoard 4.4.0 + java
Reset(1, 0) from gameMode 0
recognized 'normal' (-1) as variant normal
GameEnds(0, (null), 2)
shuffleOpenings = 0
TC string = '+5+30'
mps=0 tc=300000 inc=30000
TC string = '+5+30'
mps=0 tc=300000 inc=30000
StartChildProcess (dir="") java -jar moron.jar
Fatal Error: Startup failure on 'java -jar moron.jar':
The system cannot find the file specified.


GameEnds(40, xboard exit, 2)

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/*
 * Java translation of the famous Moron engine by Fernando Villegas
 */
package moron;

import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.util.Scanner;

public class Moron {

  static String fromWinboard() {      //get winboard command
    Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);  
    String cmd = scan.nextLine();
    writeLog("<- " + cmd);      //record what we got
    return cmd;
  }

  static void toWinboard(String msg) {  //send message to winboard
    System.out.println(msg);
    System.out.flush();    
    writeLog("-> " + msg);
  }

  static void writeLog(String msg) {
    String eol = System.getProperty("line.separator");
    try (BufferedWriter out = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter("log.txt", true))) {
      out.write(msg + eol);
      out.close();            //Close the output stream
    } catch (Exception e) {   //Catch exception if any
      System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
    }    
  }

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    fromWinboard();     //xboard
    fromWinboard();     //protover 2
    toWinboard("feature done=0 myname=Moron done=1");    
  }
}

[Jim Ablett]

Hi Dan,

Won't work. You need to use something like this >

http://www.marochess.de/chess/tools/jlaunch/

ChessGui can load java engines > http://www.chessgui.com/

Or compile the java to executable >

http://www.byobingo.com/gcc_mingw.htm

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Compiling a Java Program with GCJ

Using GCC to run a Java program is familiar to anyone who has used it for C or C++ programs. 
To compile the Java program MyJavaProg.java, type:

gcj -c -g -O MyJavaProg.java

To link it, use the command:

gcj --main=MyJavaProg -o MyJavaProg MyJavaProg.o

This is just like compiling a C++ program mycxxprog.cc:

g++ -c -g -O mycxxprog.cc

and then linking to create an executable mycxxprog:

g++ -o mycxxprog mycxxprog.o

Or use executable wrapper >

http://launch4j.sourceforge.net/


Jim.

[Dan Honeycutt]

Hi Dan,

Won't work.

Ah ha. At least I don't feel like quite such a dunce. I made an exe with Launch4j and winboard started it okay but they didn't talk. A dos window opened and stayed open. I typed in two entrys, moron replied and exited. Winboard saw that it was gone and announced that first chess program quit unexpectedly.

Launch4j has a ton of settings, I'll have to study those. I think you've got me headed in the right direction. Thanks much.

Best
Dan H.

[Jim Ablett]

Hi Dan,

Won't work.

Ah ha. At least I don't feel like quite such a dunce. I made an exe with Launch4j and winboard started it okay but they didn't talk. A dos window opened and stayed open. I typed in two entrys, moron replied and exited. Winboard saw that it was gone and announced that first chess program quit unexpectedly.

Launch4j has a ton of settings, I'll have to study those. I think you've got me headed in the right direction. Thanks much.

Best
Dan H.

In Launch4j it's important to use >

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Header type = Gui
Tick the 'stay alive after launching a GUI application' box

If you double-click the executable produced you will see nothing, but it will work in the gui.

Jim.

[Dan Honeycutt]

Getting closer. I received xboard and new. Don't know what happened to protover 2. Winboard doesn't seem to have received my features. I think I need to add more functionality to figure out what's happening.

Best
Dan H.

[Sven]

Getting closer. I received xboard and new. Don't know what happened to protover 2. Winboard doesn't seem to have received my features. I think I need to add more functionality to figure out what's happening.

Best
Dan H.

It is possible that you also need to take care about using non-buffered input, since otherwise some WinBoard command lines might be sitting in some buffer for a while. I don't know how to do it in Java. In C you would use something like setbuf(stdin, 0) or setvbuf(stdin, ...).

Sven

[Dan Honeycutt]

It is possible that you also need to take care about using non-buffered input, since otherwise some WinBoard command lines might be sitting in some buffer for a while. I don't know how to do it in Java. In C you would use something like setbuf(stdin, 0) or setvbuf(stdin, ...).

Sven

I think you hit on the problem, Sven. With some more tinkering I determined that I was sending to Winboard fine but I was only receiving about half of the commands Winboard sent me. I changed from the scanner to a buffered reader, in Java:

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BufferedReader brd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));

. . . and now IT WORKS!!

Thank you both very much.

Now, if HG wanders by maybe he can put on his todo list adding jar file support to Winboard

Best
Dan H.

[JuLieN]

Now, if HG wanders by maybe he can put on his todo list adding jar file support to Winboard

Best
Dan H.

Can't Winboard accept .bat files as engines? If yes, just run it with java "your_jar.jar"

[Dan Honeycutt]

Can't Winboard accept .bat files as engines? If yes, just run it with java "your_jar.jar"

No luck. First I tried a batch file to start winboard and feed it java my_jar and got the same error as per my original post. Next I put java my_jar in a batch file and fed that to Winboard. This time I got the error: first chess program exited unexpectedly.

Your batch file suggestion does have merit, though. I can run it as a console application by double clicking the batch file from Explorer (without having to open a cmd window). If I double click the jar file I get nothing since the file association is javaw and not java.

Best
Dan H.

[JuLieN]

Can't Winboard accept .bat files as engines? If yes, just run it with java "your_jar.jar"

No luck. First I tried a batch file to start winboard and feed it java my_jar and got the same error as per my original post. Next I put java my_jar in a batch file and fed that to Winboard. This time I got the error: first chess program exited unexpectedly.

Your batch file suggestion does have merit, though. I can run it as a console application by double clicking the batch file from Explorer (without having to open a cmd window). If I double click the jar file I get nothing since the file association is javaw and not java.

Best
Dan H.

Then maybe the solution would be to use a "jar to exe" kind of adapter?
Like this one : http://www.regexlab.com/en/jar2exe/

It's not a compiler, but it incapsulates the jvm and the jar into an exe file...