Changelog for python-chess

This project is pretty young and maturing only slowly. At the current stage it is more important to get things right, than to be consistent with previous versions. Use this changelog to see what changed in a new release, because this might include API breaking changes.

New in v0.4.2

  • Fix bug where pawn_moves_from() and consequently is_legal() weren’t handling en-passant correctly. Thanks to Norbert Naskov for reporting.

New in v0.4.1

  • Fix is_fivefold_repitition(): The new fivefold repitition rule requires the repititions to occur on alternating consecutive moves.
  • Minor testing related improvements: Close PGN files, allow running via setuptools.
  • Add recently introduced features to README.

New in v0.4.0

  • Introduce can_claim_draw(), can_claim_fifty_moves() and can_claim_threefold_repitition().
  • Since the first of July 2014 a game is also over (even without claim by one of the players) if there were 75 moves without a pawn move or capture or a fivefold repitition. Let is_game_over() respect that. Introduce is_seventyfive_moves() and is_fivefold_repitition(). Other means of ending a game take precedence.
  • Threefold repitition checking requires efficient hashing of positions to build the table. So performance improvements were needed there. The default polyglot compatible zobrist hashes are now built incrementally.
  • Fix low level rotation operations l90(), l45() and r45(). There was no problem in core because correct versions of the functions were inlined.
  • Fix equality and inequality operators for Bitboard, Move and Piece. Also make them robust against comparisons with incompatible types.
  • Provide equality and inequality operators for SquareSet and polyglot.Entry.
  • Fix return values of incremental arithmetical operations for SquareSet.
  • Make polyglot.Entry a collections.namedtuple.
  • Determine and improve test coverage.
  • Minor coding style fixes.

New in v0.3.1

  • Bitboard.status() now correctly detects STATUS_INVALID_EP_SQUARE, instead of errors or false reports.
  • Polyglot opening book reader now correctly handles knight underpromotions.
  • Minor coding style fixes, including removal of unused imports.

New in v0.3.0

  • Rename property half_moves of Bitboard to halfmove_clock.

  • Rename property ply of Bitboard to fullmove_number.

  • Let PGN parser handle symbols like !, ?, !? and so on by converting them to NAGs.

  • Add a human readable string representation for Bitboards.

    >>> print(chess.Bitboard())
r n b q k b n r
p p p p p p p p
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
P P P P P P P P
R N B Q K B N R

  • Various documentation improvements.

New in v0.2.0

  • Implement PGN parsing and writing.
  • Hugely improve test coverage and use Travis CI for continuous integration and testing.
  • Create an API documentation.
  • Improve Polyglot opening-book handling.

New in v0.1.0

Apply the lessons learned from the previous releases, redesign the API and implement it in pure Python.

New in v0.0.4

Implement the basics in C++ and provide bindings for Python. Obviously performance was a lot better - but at the expense of having to compile code for the target platform.

Pre v0.0.4

First experiments with a way too slow pure Python API, creating way too many objects for basic operations.