A pure Python chess library.
Project description
Introduction
This is the scholars mate in python-chess:
board = chess.Bitboard()
board.push_san("e4")
board.push_san("e5")
board.push_san("Qh5")
board.push_san("Nc6")
board.push_san("Bc4")
board.push_san("Nf6")
board.push_san("Qxf7")
assert board.is_checkmate()
Documentation
Features
Legal move generator and move validation. This includes all castling rules and en-passant captures.
assert not chess.Move.from_uci("a8a1") in board.legal_movesDetects checkmates, stalemates and draws by insufficient material. Has a half-move clock.
assert not board.is_stalemate() assert not board.is_insufficient_material() assert board.is_game_over()
Detects checks and attacks.
assert board.is_check() assert board.is_attacked_by(chess.WHITE, chess.E8)
Parses and creates SAN representation of moves.
board = chess.Bitboard() assert "e4" == board.san(chess.Move(chess.E2, chess.E4))
Parses and creates FENs.
assert board.fen() == "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1" board = chess.Bitboard("8/8/8/2k5/4K3/8/8/8 w - - 4 45") assert board.piece_at(chess.C5) == chess.Piece.from_symbol("k")Parses and creates EPDs.
assert board.epd(bm=chess.Move.from_uci("d2d4")) == "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - bm d4" ops = board.set_epd("1k1r4/pp1b1R2/3q2pp/4p3/2B5/4Q3/PPP2B2/2K5 b - - bm Qd1+; id \"BK.01\";") assert ops["id"] == "BK.01" assert ops["bm"] == chess.Move(chess.D6, chess.D1)Read Polyglot opening books.
import chess.polyglot with chess.polyglot.open_reader("data/opening-books/performance.bin") as book: board = chess.Bitboard() for entry in book.get_entries_for_position(board): assert chess.Move.from_uci("e2e4") == entry.move() break
Peformance
python-chess is not intended to be used by serious chess engines where performance is critical. The goal is rather to create a simple and relatively highlevel library.
However, even though bit fiddling in Python is not as fast as in C or C++, the current version is still much faster than previous attempts including the naive x88 move generation from libchess.
Installing
With pip:
sudo pip install python-chess
From current source code:
python setup.py build sudo python setup.py install
License
python-chess is licensed under the GPL3. See the LICENSE file for the full copyright and license information.
Thanks to the developers of http://chessx.sourceforge.net/. Some of the core bitboard move generation parts are ported from there.
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