Running a series of tournaments using Xboard

[pocopito]

Hi all

I'm using xboard to automatically launch a series of tournaments of different versions of my engine against the same opponent. I've created a little script that goes something like (in something similar to python pseudocode):

Code: Select all

kitt-versions =  ['v1', 'v2', .....]
for version in kitt-versions
       xboard -fcp version -scp tscp... etc

The idea is let the tournaments playing and when they all are finished just take a deeply look at the output files (namely bug and pgn). The problem arises when a tournament finishes: xboard interface shows a message window saying something like "tournament finished: result-12-34-1" and in order to the next tournament to start I have to manually click on "Accept". I've searched on the "man xboard" but haven't found a way to avoid this "human assisted" step. I tried with something similar to "-afterTourney" option, calling the command "killall xboard", but it didn't make the trick (it seems this "afterTourney" option is executed also once "Acsept" has been clicked").
Is there a way to avoid to click on "Accept" in order to play several tournaments in a row? (it wouldn't be a problem if the option'd disable the visual interface).

Best regards

E Diaz

[hgm]

Untick 'Popup Exit Messages' in General Options.

But it would be more logical to use XBoard's internal tournament manager for this, rather than an external script. Just do a multi-gauntlet of v1, v2... against the opponents, with 100 (or whatever) games per pairing.

[pocopito]

Thanks, it worked perfectly.

I'm trying to search a weird bug so the idea is to play many games with different versions of my engine and then analyze the outputs in order to detect the first version that shows the bug.

[hgm]

Yes, I understand. My point was that XBoard is perfectly capable of doing that without using any external script.

[pocopito]

Many thanks for the hint.

Strange as it may seem I've somehow got used to execute Xboard from the command line and right now I feel more comfortable using it this way than via the interface.

[hgm]

Well, we always try to make most functionality accessible through command-line options. But for some features that is not feasible. It would be hard to use the concurrency, for instance. Unless you created the tourney file by hand, like you create your script now. But you would have to know very well what you were doing to manage that.