Re: [computer-go] SGC

["Nicol N. Schraudolph" <compgo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I think it is not a good idea to invent a new file format for compressed 
> games and compressed game collections. Much easier for everybody to 
> implement, and much "cleaner", using established standards and most probably 
> achieving equal or better compression with much less effort for all people 
> who would need to support this new format is to have a "csgf" format, 
> compressed SGF.
> 
> Which simply is a standard ZIP file (or ZLIB or whichever widely 
> standardized freeware-available format).

When doing machine learning on go game collections, I find it most
convenient to use a "one-line format" (.olf) which puts all the relevant
data of a game (players, ranks, handicap, komi, score, etc., and moves)
on a single line (Windows users, think .csv file - comma-separated
values).  Why?  There are a lot of free Gnu tools (grep, sed, awk,
perl, etc.) which allow me to easily pull out sub-sollections of games
according to various criteria from .olf files.  Gives me all the features
of a database without any of the hassle.

This need is addressed neither by zipped SGF nor by SGC, though the
latter is a step in the right direction since I can directly use the
SGC compressed move format.  Oh, and where I absolutely need to save
space I just bzip2 my .olf files.

Best,

- nic

-- 
    Dr. Nicol Schraudolph                      work: +61-2-612-51552
    RSISE, bldg. 115, room B148                home:          -51115
    Australian National University              fax:          -58645
    Canberra, ACT 0200
    Australia                              http://n.schraudolph.org/


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