4.5 Load and Save options

-lgf or -loadGameFile file

-lgi or -loadGameIndex index

If the loadGameFile option is set, XBoard loads the specified game file at startup. The file name - specifies the standard input. If there is more than one game in the file, XBoard pops up a menu of the available games, with entries based on their PGN (Portable Game Notation) tags. If the loadGameIndex option is set to ‘N’, the menu is suppressed and the N th game found in the file is loaded immediately. The menu is also suppressed if matchMode is enabled or if the game file is a pipe; in these cases the first game in the file is loaded immediately. Use the pxboard shell script provided with XBoard if you want to pipe in files containing multiple games and still see the menu. If the loadGameIndex specifies an index -1, this triggers auto-increment of the index in matchMode, which means that after every game the index is incremented by one, causing each game of the match to be played from the next game in the file. Similarly, specifying an index value of -2 causes the index to be incremented every two games, so that each game in the file is used twice (with reversed colors). The rewindIndex option causes the index to be reset to the first game of the file when it has reached a specified value.

-rewindIndex n

Causes a position file or game file to be rewound to its beginning after n positions or games in auto-increment matchMode. See loadPositionIndex and loadGameIndex. default: 0 (no rewind).

-td or -timeDelay seconds

Time delay between moves during ‘Load Game’ or ‘Analyze File’. Fractional seconds are allowed; try ‘-td 0.4’. A time delay value of -1 tells XBoard not to step through game files automatically. Default: 1 second.

-sgf or -saveGameFile file

If this option is set, XBoard appends a record of every game played to the specified file. The file name - specifies the standard output.

-autosave/-xautosave or -autoSaveGames true/false

Sets the Auto Save menu option. See Options Menu. Default: false. Ignored if saveGameFile is set.

-onlyOwnGames true/false

Suppresses auto-saving of ICS observed games. Default: false.

-lpf or -loadPositionFile file

-lpi or -loadPositionIndex index

If the loadPositionFile option is set, XBoard loads the specified position file at startup. The file name - specifies the standard input. If the loadPositionIndex option is set to N, the Nth position found in the file is loaded; otherwise the first position is loaded. If the loadPositionIndex specifies an index -1, this triggers auto-increment of the index in matchMode, which means that after every game the index is incremented by one, causing each game of the match to be played from the next position in the file. Similarly, specifying an index value of -2 causes the index to be incremented every two games, so that each position in the file is used twice (with the engines playing opposite colors). The rewindIndex option causes the index to be reset to the first position of the file when it has reached a specified value.

-spf or -savePositionFile file

If this option is set, XBoard appends the final position reached in every game played to the specified file. The file name - specifies the standard output.

-pgnExtendedInfo true/false

If this option is set, XBoard saves depth, score and time used for each move that the engine found as a comment in the PGN file. Default: false.

-pgnEventHeader string

Sets the name used in the PGN event tag to string. Default: "Computer Chess Game".

-pgnNumberTag true/false

Include the (unique) sequence number of a tournament game into the saved PGN file as a 'number' tag. Default: false.

-saveOutOfBookInfo true/false

Include the information on how the engine(s) game out of its opening book in a special 'annotator' tag with the PGN file. Default: true.

-oldsave/-xoldsave or -oldSaveStyle true/false

Sets the Old Save Style menu option. See Options Menu. Default: false.

-gameListTags string

The character string lists the PGN tags that should be printed in the Game List, and their order. The meaning of the codes is e=event, s=site, d=date, o=round, p=players, r=result, w=white Elo, b=black Elo, t=time control, v=variant, a=out-of-book info, c=result comment. Default: "eprd"

-ini or -settingsFile filename

-saveSettingsFile filename

@filename

When XBoard encounters an option -settingsFile (or -ini for short), or @filename, it tries to read the mentioned file, and substitutes the contents of it (presumaby more command-line options) in place of the option. In the case of -ini or -settingsFile, the name of a successfully read settings file is also remembered as the file to use for saving settings (automatically on exit, or on user command). An option of the form @filename does not affect saving. The option -saveSettingsFile does specify a name of the file to use for saving, without reading any options from it, and is thus also effective when the file did not exist yet. So the settings will be saved to the file specified in the last -saveSettingsFile or succesfull -settingsFile / -ini command, if any, and in /etc/xboard/xboard.conf otherwise. Usualy the latter is only accessible for the system administrator, though, and will be used to contain system-wide default setings, amongst which a -saveSettingsFile and -settingsFile options to specify a settings file accessible to the individual user, such as ~/.xboardrc in the user's home directory.

-saveSettingsOnExit true/false

Controls saving of options on the settings file. See Options Menu. Default: true.