10th June 2024: Bug fix for -n resulting from failing to completely check the
validity of non-matching games.
23rd May 2024: For tag matches using <> in which all matches are negative,
the absence of that tag from a game will result in the game being retained.
17th May 2024: Bug fix for relational operators matching numeric tags.
Comparisons are now 'anded' rather than 'ored'.
15th May 2024: Bug fix affecting material matches for games with a FEN tag
in which Black is to move.
28th April 2024: Added --commented. Suggested by Jacob Shouvman.
5th January 2024: Added --insufficient.
4th January 2024: Added --suppressmatched and -n stdout.
1st January 2024: <> relational operator now available for non-numeric tag values.
EloDiff pseudo-tag added for matching differences in Elo rating between opponents,
following a suggestion from Fitzgerald Krudde.
13th December 2023: Detect wrong to-move status in FEN string when the other side is in check.
10th August 2022: Bug fix with -z for failure to match the final position and not
necessarily marking the first match in a game when there are multiple matches.
7th August 2022: Bug fix for -z when only one side's pieces are listed.
27th June 2022: --firstgame and --gamelimit added. Suggested by Peter Stein.
23rd June 2022: Regular expressions added to tag matching via -t. Suggested by Peter
Stein.
18th May 2022: --seventyfive added.
17th May 2022: --repetition5 added.
16th May 2022: Multiple numeric matches of a single tag with -t now
require all matches to be true. This allows selection of ranges of values
via < and > operators, for instance.
Floating-point numerical values are accepted.
3rd May 2022: Bug fix for failure to clear a pointer to freed memory.
27th Mar 2022: Relational operator (>, <, etc.) may be used to match
any wholly numeric tag values via the -t flag.
23rd Feb 2022: Bug fix for material matches where games involve promotion.
17th Feb 2022: Added recognition of some en passant indicators in the input. They are deleted
in the output version.
26th Jan 2022: Added recognition of single-line comments. I have no idea why these escaped my
attention over the past 27 years!
Fixed inconsistent conversion of polyglot hashcodes shorter than 16 digits, and output hashcodes
with leading zeros where appropriate. The fix affected correct operation of the -H option.
Replaced nonsense Result tags with *.
Fixed incorrect TotalPlyCount when --totalplycount and --splitvariants are used together.
Thanks for Robert Gamble for highlighting these issues.
18th Jan 2022: Bug fix to --evaluation that counted illegal ep moves in the Shannon evaluation.
28 Dec 2021: Edits to the index to make it a little more structured.
24th Nov 2021: Added -Wfen.
16th July 2021: Added --deletesamesetup.
25th June 2021: Extended matching of TimeControl to include the formats
of sudden death and sandclock.
19th June 2021: Added --addfencastling following a suggestion from
David Barlow.
4th Apr 2021: Added --detag following a suggestion by Gabriele Battaglia.
2nd Mar 2021: Make duplicate suppression work with input from stdin. Added --minply, --maxply,
--minmoves, --maxmoves as clearer alternatives to -p and -b.
27th Jan 2021: Bug fix to --fixtagstrings.
3rd Jan 2021: Added --linenumbers following a suggestion by Ejner Borgbjerg.
8th Nov 2020: Added --fixtagstrings.
7th Nov 2020: Date matches with -t and -T extended to match on month and day as well as year.
7th Oct 2020: Added --wtm and --btm.
25th Jul 2020: Added limited relational TimeControl matching with -t following
a suggestion by Erwin Wouterson.
2nd Jul 2020: Added missing 'ep' for en passant moves with -Wxlalg and -Wxolalg.
12th Feb 2020: Bug fix to eliminate illegal pawn moves in long algebraic notation.
13th Oct 2019: Suppressed repeated error message with malformed dates when matching a Date tag with a relational operator.
31st Jul 2019: Added --startply.
21st Jun 2019: Added --fenpattern, --fenpatterni, --materialy and --materialz as command-line arguments.
9th May 2019: Delete NAGs appearing before the first move of a game. $220 is
sometimes used (e.g., by ChessPad) as a print-board indicator.
22nd Apr 2019: Improved --repetition so that it does not give false positives when
castling rights or who is to move are different.
Retain next move number rather than resetting to 1 with --dropply and --dropbefore.
14th Apr 2019: Fixed a memory error in v18-10 that occurred when a positional match was found but the moves of the game were invalid.
28th Mar 2019: Added --xroster to suppress tags that are not required with -R.
13th Nov 2018: Missing SetUp tags no longer elicit an error message as this contravention of the standard is so common.
28th Oct 2018: Negative value accepted with --dropply to indicates plies to be
retained at the end of the game.
18th Oct 2018: open game files in binary mode to cope with the Ctrl
characters that appear in some.
17th Oct 2018: Accept Z0 as an alternative to --.
13th Oct 2018: Added --dropbefore as a result of a suggestion by Josip Salai.
Fixed missing SetUp tag with --dropply.
Fixed -H to work with 32-bit Windows.
7th Oct 2018: Added -y.
19th Aug 2018: Fixed a memory leak with -z.
11th July 2018: Added the MatchLabel tag and FENPatternI matching
with -t after a suggestion by Hedinn Steingrimsson.
In addition, significantly improved the efficiency of FENPattern
matches.
3rd July 2018: Added the MaterialMatch tag with -z after a suggestion
by Hedinn Steingrimsson.
23rd Apr 2018: With -R, include tags in the output that are not explicitly
listed in the roster order. This aligns the behaviour with the documentation.
9th Feb 2018: Suppress warning for null moves when --allownullmoves is used.
With --fixresulttags, prefer the terminating result if either it or the result
tag is "*".
29th Dec 2017: Corrected failure to OR rather than AND the pseudo Elo
tag used with -t.
17th Dec 2017: Accepted multiple NAG comment pairs after a move.
If NAGs are suppressed then the associated comments are retained.
30th Nov 2017: Added --nestedcomments.
12th Nov 2017: Added --dropply after a suggestion by Heiko Bruns.
5th Oct 2017: Only require "960" in Variant tag strings for
Chess960 games.
23rd Sep 2017: Added the previously documented, but
unimplemented --underpromotion.
3rd Sep 2017: Bug fix for zero-move games which were not being
followed by a blank line.
26th July 2017: --matchplylimit added following a suggestion by James Ward.
23rd July 2017: Bug fix for --splitvariants.
21st July 2017: Added --nobadresults to suppress games with inconsistent
result indications.
Fixed failure to correct terminating result with --fixresulttags.
Added --allownullmoves.
15th July 2017: Added -Tf for FEN pattern matching.
8th July 2017: Added --plycount. With -z, use a FEN tag (if present) to count
the number of pieces.
6th July 2017: Adjusted -z to work correctly with a position stability value of 0.
Implemented the suggestion of Josip Salai that that FEN as the marker with --markmatches
should be interpreted as a request to output the FEN encoding of the match position.
28th June 2017: Added a c1 comment to -Wepd output to record the game's result.
Added the requirement that the Variant tag contain the string "chess 960" to be
considered as Chess960 games on output. This primarily affects encoding of castling
moves in long-algebraic notation.
6th June 2017: Added a second number to the -# flag to control file numbering.
4th June 2017: Chess960 long algebraic castling notation accommodated
on both input and output. This is where castling is indicated by specifying
the Rook's column as the destination for the King.
2nd June 2017: With --fixresulttags don't report inconsistent results that
can be fixed.
21st May 2017: Added --commentlines after a suggestion
by Gabriele Battaglia.
21st April 2017: Optional limiting depth added to --splitvariants.
7th April 2017: License updated to version 3 of the GPL.
31st March 2017: Added --splitvariants after a suggestion by Vladimir Volovich
to add functionality found in pgnsplit.
19th February 2017: Extended --selectonly and added --skipmatching after
a suggestion by Folkert van Heusden.
16th February 2017: Fixed runtime failure when -x and -n were used together.
Added missing SetUp tag when a FEN tag is present.
Correct "1/2" in a Result tag to "1/2-1/2".
Added explicit Q promotion when unspecified.
Fixed lack of output with -W (i.e., output as source).
29th January 2017: Added --hashcomments to add a comment containing
a polyglot hash code after each move. Added -H for Zobrist polyglot hash
matches.
Added text after -F for FEN-position output at arbitrary positions and not simply
at the end of a game. Suggested by Josip Salai.
22nd January 2017: Added --stopafter.
20th January 2017: Added --nosetuptags and --onlysetuptags following a
discussion with Mike Crockett. Added -p[elu] for finer control of game
length matching than provided by -b.
14th January 2017: Fixed --fuzzydepth.
9th January 2017: Improved the efficiency of (lack of) stalemate detection.
1st January 2017: Added --fixresulttags for conflicts between the game termination
and the result tag.
Source code rewrites of function names for more consistent naming.
8th November 2016: Allows 'b' as a trailing promotion character, previously disallowed.
3rd September 2016: Added --quiescent for position quiescence after a suggestion from
Mike Crockett.
17th April 2016: Added --tagsubstr for substring matches on tags.
4th March 2016: Added --quiet to suppress the number of games processed, as an extension of -s.
(Suggested by Norm Pollock.)
21st November 2015: Added recognition of Chess960 FEN encodings and application of its
castling rules.
16th October 2015: Added --fifty, --repetition, and warnings about inconsistent results in tags on
checkmate and stalemate after suggestions by Norm Pollock.
6th May 2015: Fixed errors in the half-move clock on castling and pawn promotion, thanks
to Brandon RichardWebster.
23rd Mar 2015: Added --nofauxep after a suggestion by Norm Pollock.
21st Mar 2015: Fixed off-by-one in move number output with -F when white-to-move.
20th Mar 2015: Added -Wxlalg at the suggestion of Bruce Ramsey.
8th Jan 2015: Fixed bug in game counting with -#.
Suppressed games with null moves (--) in the main line.
28th October 2014. Added --selectonly after a suggestion by Francis Steen.
2nd September 2014. Corrected an error in the generation of hashcodes
when a promotion is made.
31st May 2014. Added --addhashcode.
25th May 2014. Added --totalplycount for Erich Körber.
5th March 2014. Added --keepbroken to allow broken games to be output.
Added at the request of Mark Crowther primarily to deal with the problem of live
recording where the kings are moved to the centre of the board at the end of
a game and erroneously included in the score.
6th September 2013. Corrected failure to 'or' together multiple
dates with -T and -t.
16th May 2013. Corrected an error in the whole-move number in
FEN output, thanks to Vincent Fleuranceau.
14th May 2013. Null move notation (--) in variations recognised.
16th April 2013. Added --fuzzydepth. This is due to Owen D. Lyne who
requested this functionality years ago - sorry for taking so long, Owen!
11th April 2013. Added -Wuci.
29th March 2013. Added --version.
26th March 2013. Fixed crash when a string to be output is longer than the output line length.
12th March 2013. Added long-form versions of -a, -c, -d and -o:
--append, --checkfile, --duplicates and --output.
9th February 2013. Added pattern matching based on
FEN descriptions and --markmatches for JS.
23rd December 2012. Added --fencomments for Tyler Eaves.
2nd December 2012. Allowed 0 for --plylimit.
22nd September 2008. Added --stalemate for Wieland Belka.
15th September 2008. Added --nochecks and fixed -A so that it
handles long-form arguments properly.
22nd December 2007. Added --notags, --plylimit, --nomovenumbers and
--noresults after a suggestion by Wieland Belka to be able to create opening books.
Added --evaluation for Folkert van Heusden.
Added --stalemate for Norm Pollock.
Added calculation of the half-move clock to FEN strings.
Most of the arguments taking filenames can now be separated from
the filename with a space.
Gradually adding long-form alternatives for arguments, e.g.
--seven, --notags, etc.
24th April 2007. Fixed a bug with mate annotation. Added the -M flag for
checkmate matches, which is due to Richard Jones.
19th October 2005. Added language-specific letters to -Welalg
following a suggestion from Folkert van Heusden.
1st May 2004: Fixed an error with ECO classification that
was causing the file list to be out of sync.
29th April 2004: Buffered game text before outputting it,
so that trailing spaces on lines (which violate the PGN spec)
can be deleted.
Games with zero moves are now acceptable.
26th April 2004: Slight modification to one of the hashing
values made in order to try to avoid clashes in ECO matches.
ECO matches now have a discretion of up to 6 half moves.
13th February 2002: Added -Welalg as an output format following
a suggestion from Rafal Furdzik.
27th March 2001
Added output of EPD via -Wepd.
Fixed a long standing error in FEN castling rights. These were
not being withdrawn if a Rook was captured on its home square.
Pointed out by Karl-Martin Skontorp, who also provided the
incentive to add -Wepd.
26th April 2000
Added the -R flag for tag ordering.
22nd April 2000
Completed implementation of -A to work with all flags.
21st April 2000
Added the -F flag.
Added support for reading Russian source files.
11th April 2000
Added the -A flag.
Extended usage of -Wsan to support output in different languages.
Usage of -e with -7 retains an ECO tag in matched games.
FEN tags with the -t flag are used as positional matches
(equivalent to -x matches).
Non-standard tags are now retained in game output.
12th January 2000
C compiler with Red Hat Linux 6 was no longer happy with
static initialisations involving stdin, stdout and stderr.
Changes made to lex.c and main.c to work around this.
Pointed out by Mladen Bestvina.
18th October 1999
Numbers greater than 3 allowed with -E, at the request of Owen Lyne.
15th December 1997
Treat \r as WHITESPACE (for DOS files).
8th June 1997
Added -b flag to set bounds on the number of moves in a game to
be matched.
2nd May 1997
Corrected small error when strings were not terminated properly.
In tags, this resulted in the corrected tag ending in ]"] instead
of "].
17th February 1997
Added a little more error recovery.
15th November 1996
Added -Z.
23rd Sep 1996
It is no longer necessary to omit move numbers from the variations
files (-v and -x). This makes it easier to cut and paste games
of interest into these files.
28th Jun 1996
It is no longer necessary to terminate the tag file (-t).
Relational operators added in the tag file (-t).
Added -E flag.
7th May 1996
Corrected failure to make ECO classification when combined with -x.
Added lalg and halg as long algebraic output formats.
9th Oct 1995
Add -#
25th Sep 1995:
Default to reading stdin if no file arguments are provided.
24th Jul 1995:
Added setup from FEN tags.
18th Jul 1995:
Added material balance matches with -z.
Added 'L' as a minor piece letter in ending files.
14th Jul 1995:
Made the order of arguments immaterial.
5th Jul 1995:
Added ECO classification with -e.
Fixed false partial substring matches with -v, e.g. textual
variation move Nc6 is now no longer matched by game move c6.
22nd Mar 1995:
Made permutation matching with -v the default and added -P
to suppress it.
Jan 1995: Added -n and -L.
17th Nov 1994: Liberated the program from using YACC and Lex.
13th Oct 1994: Released test version with ChessMaster output.
20th Sep 1994: Added move rewriting and -W flag.
7th Sep 1994: Added -D flag.
6th Sep 1994: Added -C and -V flags and soundex matching.
5th Sep 1994:
Integrated the positional variation code from a separately
developed program.
Added -N flag.
Added ! to the textual variation syntax.
Removed the writing to extract.pgn that was present in an
earlier unreleased version.
Added -d flag.
8th Jul 1994:
Added -o flag.
Discarded writing to standard output in DOS version because of
extensive problems trying to make this work with redirected
output. Instead, output is written to the file extract.pgn.
6th Jul 1994: Added -7 flag.
9th May 1994: Added -p flag for variation permutations.
6th May 1994: Added * as a don't-care move in variations files.
26th Apr 1994: Added the -t flag for files of extraction criteria.
25th Apr 1994: Added the -T flag for extraction criteria.
22nd Apr 1994: Added the -f flag for handling lists of PGN files.
13th Apr 1994:
Cleaned up the game-length determination by reading/writing files
in binary-mode.
Added -a flag for appending to existing .pgn files.