Portable Draughts Notation (.PDN) is the standard computer-processable format for recording draughts games. This format is derived from Portable Game Notation, which is the standard chess format.
PDN files are text files which must contain Tag Pairs and Movetext for each game.
Tag pairs begin with "[", the name of the tag, the tag value enclosed in double-quotes, and a closing "]". There must be a newline after each tag. Tag names are case-sensitive.
PDN data for archival storage is required to provide 7 tags.
A position can be stored by the FEN
tag:
[SetUp "1"] [FEN "[Turn]:[Color 1]K[Square number][,]...]:[Color 2]K[Square number] [,]...]"]
B
for Black, W
for WhiteB
for Black, W
, and the sequence is unimportant.Examples:
[FEN "B:W18,24,27,28,K10,K15:B12,16,20,K22,K25,K29"]
[FEN "B:W18,19,21,23,24,26,29,30,31,32:B1,2,3,4,6,7,9,10,11,12"]
Movetext contains the actual moves for the game. Moves begin with the source square number, then a "-" or "x", finally destination square number. Jumps must be specified by each square that would be jumped ("11x18x25"), or two squares only ("11x25").
The end of the game must contain the 4 standard result codes: "1-0", "1/2-1/2" "0-1", and "*". The codes must be the same as the Result
tag pair.
An annotator who wishes to suggest alternative moves to those actually played in the game may insert variations enclosed in parentheses.
Comments may be added by either a ";" (a comment that continues to the end of the line) or a "{" (which continues until a matching "}"). Comments do not nest.
PDN can be used in a wide variety of draughts variants synthesized with different board sizes. For example, PDN can represent 8x8 and 10x10 boards. It can represent unmatched board sizes by specifying unequivalent values in the Board-width
and the Board-height
headers. It can include the optional GameType
tag to differentiate between different variants.
[GameType "Type-number [,Start color (W/B),Board width, Board height, Notation ,Invert-flag"]
Type-number: this is one of the following type-numbers:
0: Chess 1: Chinese chess 2-19: future chess expansion 20: 10x10 draughts (international) 21: English draughts (kings only move 1 step at a time) 22: Italian draughts (as English, Men cannot take kings, must capture max) 23: American pool draughts (as 10x10, not obliged to take max) 24: Spanish pool draughts (as 10x10 rules, but men cannot capture backwards) 25: Russian draughts 26: Brazilian 8x8 draughts (same as 10x10 rules) 27: Canadian 12x12 draughts (same as 10x10 rules) 28: Portuguese draughts 29: Czech draughts 30: Turkish draughts 31: Thai draughts 40: Frisian draughts 41: Spantsiretti (Russian draughts 10x8) 32-39, 42-49: Future draughts expansion 50: Othello 51.. Future expansion.
B
for Black, W
for WhiteA
- alpha/numeric like chessN
- numeric like draughtsS
- SAN - short-form chess notation. Then follows a number 0-4 telling where square A1 or 1 is for the side who starts the game (White or Black), 0 = Bottom left, 1=Bottom right, 2=Top left, 3=Top right.0
- pieces on dark squares1
- pieces on light squares[Event "itsyourturn.com USA vs. World 8/04"] [Site ""] [Date "2004.08.23"] [Round "1"] [Black "Lindus Edwards"] [White "Anthony Perez"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] 1. 11-15 23-18 2. 8-11 26-23 {Crescent Cross} 3. 10-14 30-26 4. 6-10 24-19 5. 15-24 27-20* {28-19 loses PP} 6. 4-8 {the popular book line is 12-16 28-24 4-8 22-17* 8-12 32-28* = same} 32-27 {Perez' cook; 28-24 apparently goes to the previous note} 7. 12-16 {seems to be the only move with any strength} 27-24 8. 8-12 22-17 {returning to the book line mentioned earlier} 9. 10-15 17-10 10. 7-14 26-22* 1/2-1/2 {a very popular position} 1/2-1/2 [Event "The Royal Tour"] [Site ""] [Date "??"] [Round "1"] [Black "a"] [White "b"] [Result "1-0"] [Setup "1"] [FEN "W:W27,19,18,11,7,6,5:B28,26,25,20,17,10,9,4,3,2."] {27-24 Beginning a spectacular shot in which White pitches (almost) all his men } 1. 19-15 10x19 2. 5-1 3x10 3. 11-8 4x11 4. 27-24 20x27 5. 18-14 9x18 6. 1-5 2x9 {2-9 and now the coup de grace that inspired the name of this problem...} 7. 5x32 {5-32 (Several different jumping sequences are possible, for example 5 x 14 x 7 x 16 x 23 x 14 x 21 x 30 x 23 x 32) White Wins. As an interesting side note, this nine-piece jump is the theoretical maximum number of pieces it is possible to jump in a single turn in checkers (try setting up a 10-piece jump - the board lacks sufficient space!)} 1-0 [Event "WK 2003"] [Site "Zwartewaterland, Netherlands"] [Round "1"] [Date "2003.05.23"] [White "Ndjofang, J.M."] [Black "Heusdens, R."] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [GameType "20"] 1. 32-28 17-22 2. 28x17 12x21 3. 31-26 7-12 4. 26x17 12x21 5. 36-31 19-23 6. 34-29 23x34 7. 39x30 20-24 8. 30x19 14x23 9. 37-32 21-27 10. 31x22 18x27 11. 32x21 16x27 12. 41-37 10-14 13. 46-41 11-17 14. 33-29 23x34 15. 40x29 6-11 16. 35-30 14-20 17. 45-40 20-24 18. 30x19 13x33 19. 38x29 5-10 20. 42-38 10-14 21. 44-39 8-12 22. 40-34 14-19 23. 50-44 2-7 24. 48-42 19-23 25. 29x18 12x23 26. 39-33 7-12 27. 33-28 23x32 28. 37x28 9-13 29. 44-39 3-9 30. 38-33 9-14 31. 34-30 17-21 32. 33-29 21-26 33. 43-38 1-7 34. 41-37 11-17 35. 39-34 7-11 36. 30-24 11-16 37. 34-30 27-31 38. 28-23 16-21 39. 30-25 12-18 40. 23x12 17x8 1/2-1/2