Friday, June 27, 2008

New ANTLR targets

Till now I used javacc (http://javacc.dev.java.net/), the Java Compiler Compiler, for creating my parsers.

Like I said earlier (http://shogi-software.blogspot.com/2008/01/tsume-shogi-parser-or-how-to-store-28k.html) I was hoping to try ANTLR out.

Today I read two interesting pieces of information:
  1. There is an IDE to develop and debug grammars, ANTLRWorks.
  2. New (3.1) ANTLR would support JavaScript and ActionScript as targets (platforms in which parsers generated by ANTLR can run).
It is certainly big motivation for me to check this tool out. First of all, ANTLRWorks will make designing and testing my Shogi grammars much easier and faster.
Secondly, new targets will allow creation of shogi games browsing/viewing software on these two very popular platforms: JavaScript and Flash/Flex.

I am going to give it a try very soon.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Visiting the Dark Side

I've been inactive (as a blogger) for quite a time now.

Due to some technical problems MyJavaServer.com didn't accept any new files. That made me search for alternative hosting site for my experiments.
I couldn't find anything similar to mjs but I googled http://www.vndv.com/ out. They give you free hosting for your PHP pages, MySQL databases, subdomains, ftp access, no advertisements, very decent user interface, tutorials. But no Java... Well, nobody's perfect :-)
I spent time on toying a little bit with PHP and client side technologies.

I'll show you my firs PHP page (http://fatboldcyclop.vndv.com/index.php):

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
  <title>PHP Test</title>
</head>
<body>
  <?php phpinfo(); ?>
</body>
</html>

I am very proud of it :-). But seriously, I did some reading on PHP and I found it interesting. I decided to check it out later and take a closer look at client side web development with JavaScript and CSS first.
My first attempt was to write JavaScript Shogi Board Viewer. I'll describe the program on this blog later. Now I'll share with you my impressions on JavaScript (JS)-- it was basically my first real contact with the language.

First of all, I greatly underestimated the language. Now I think that it is a flexible, dynamic and powerful language. You can do many thing using small clever JS "tricks", but...

But developing in JS is for me a road trip through hell. I managed to get used to auto complete feature of Java IDEs. In Java, which is very strict, the tool can "easily" predict what the programmer can type (object properties and methods, etc.). With JavaScript it's not so easy -- it is dynamic, method and properties can be added on the fly, etc. But IDE is only small part of the problem.
The biggest pain was for me browser compatibility. I had a piece of code ruining smoothly on few browsers (i.e. FireFox 2 and 3, Opera, Safari) but IE somehow didn't like a line or two. Figuring out which line was the real challenge.

Debugging JS is so difficult. Thank God for FireBug. It saved me a lot of time and nerves, but it comes only with FireFox. Fortunately, Opera (9.5) and IE 8.0beta also have a "cheaper" version of the tool.

Another annoying thing about client side web development is CSS compliance. I tried to do simple things like having 2 text boxes next to each other. O what fun it is to make it work exactly the same in all the browsers. This one gives you an extra margin between two boxes, other resizes one box, etc. etc.
By the way, I fought with IE7.0 for correct placement of pieces on the board in my SFEN converter. I won the battle but I lost the war. After I finally forced IE7 to show it right, IE8 was released. And of course, the newer version of the browser has it's own way of positioning page elements.

Anyway, I'm glad I gave it a try. I learnt few things:
  • I lack the imagination to think how people did it before the FireFox came to life.
  • browsershots.org is a great tool to test your web design in different browsers.
  • Trying/learning different languages opens your eyes to new possibilities.
  • JavaScript is an interesting and powerful language but using it is not such fun at all.
  • If you want to show HTML code on your blog, you could use this tool to make it possible.
All in all it was a very educational experiment for me -- short walk on the dark side of the web development.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Unicode for Shogi characters


To be able to translate Shogi data between formats you have to know possible piece symbols. I collected  the information I could get (mainly from wikipedia.org) in the following table. Then I found (on http://www.rikai.com/library/kanjitables/kanji_codes.unicode.shtml) unicode values for eaech Shogi piece.
Shogi pieces



















































































































































































English name


Unicode

for abbr. Kanji


Kanji


Rōmaji


Meaning


Abbreviations


Symbol


Kanji


Rōmaji


King (reigning)


738B


王将


ōshō


royal general


K





ō


King (challenging)


7389


玉将


gyokushō


jeweled general


K





gyoku


Rook


98DB


飛車


hisha


flying chariot


R





hi


Promoted rook (Dragon)


9F8D or 7ADC


龍王


ryūō


dragon king


+R


龍 or



ryū


Bishop


89D2


角行


kakugyō


angle mover


B





kaku


Promoted bishop (Horse)


99AC


龍馬


ryūma or ryūme


dragon horse


+B





uma


Gold general (Gold)


91D1


金将


kinshō


gold general


G





kin


Silver general (Silver)


9280


銀将


ginshō


silver general


S





gin


Promoted silver


5168


成銀


narigin


promoted silver


+S








Knight


6842


桂馬


keima


horse


N





kei


Promoted knight


572D or 4ECA


成桂


narikei


promoted laurel


+N


(圭 or
今)





Lance


9999


香車


kyōsha


incense chariot


L





kyō


Promoted lance


674F or 4EDD


成香


narikyō


promoted incense


+L


(杏 or
仝)





Pawn


6B69


歩兵


fuhyō


foot soldier


p





fu


Promoted pawn (tokin)


3068 or 4E2A


と金


tokin


reaches gold


+p


と (or
个)


to


Coordinates
In KIF files the characters are Shift-JIS encoded. Characters used to describe shogi board coordinates and their unicode values are listed below.





































































































description


char


unicode


1st column





FF11


2nd column





FF12


3rd column





FF13


4th column





FF14


5th column





FF15


6th column





FF16


7th column





FF17


8th column





FF18


9th column





FF19


1st row





4E00


2nd row





4E8C


3rd row





4E09


4th row





56DB


5th row





4E94


6th row





516D


7th row





4E03


8th row





516B


9th row





4E5D




Move modificators
The symbols used in Kifu to identify the piece to move (when there is
a situation in which more then one piece of the same kind can reach
given destination):




































































symbol

unicode

meaning


76F4

move straight


5F15

pull (back)


4E0A

go forward (literally means “up”)


5BC4

go to the side


53F3

right


5dE6

left

右引





right-back

右寄





right-go to the side

右上





right up

左引





left-back

左寄





left-go to the side

左上





left up


I hope someone finds this information useful.