configs and projectPath

In the last few commits the problem occured
that absolute paths are needed for correct
and unambiguous locations for binary files
or the database.
For the compiler arguments the problem is now
solved with an automatic script, that creates
the absolute paths automatically for different
systems.
The database path is now specified by calling
a new function, that finds the root of the
project followed by a relative path.

.gitignore

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-*.db
+secret.nim
+nim.cfg
 
 bin
 htmldocs
-pgn
+ressources
-secret.nim

README.md

@@ -4,17 +4,44 @@
 
 ychess is a chess implementation and engine written in nim.
 
-## Quick Setup
+## Usage and contribution
+
+For the following subsections to work properly you need to have `nim.cfg` files
+so you don't need to pass all compiler arguments manually.
+To automatically create the config files run `nim c -r createCfg.nim` from the
+root directory of the project.
+
+### Todos
+
+[TODO.md](./TODO.md) contains a list of features that are planned.
+
+### Command line
 
 To play chess in the commandline simply download the code (or clone the
 repository) and run `nim c -r game.nim`.
 You can either play the 1v1 hotseat mode or a single player mode vs the engine.
 
-Additionally ychess uses the lichess api to make playing more convenient.
+### Lichess
+
+ychess uses the lichess api to make playing more convenient.
 An instance of the engine occasionally plays on
 [lichess](https://lichess.org/@/tiyn-ychess).
 To get into the whitelist just write a ingame message to the account.
 
+If you want to create an instance on lichess yourself you need to set a api
+token.
+This is done in `src/engine/secret.nim`.
+It should have the following structure:
+
+```nim
+let api_token* = "<lichess api token for bot>"
+```
+
+Following that you will want to set your username into the whitelist in
+`src/engine/lichessBridge.nim`.
+After that you can start the lichess bot by running
+`nim c -r src/engine/lichessBridge.nim`.
+
 ## Project Structure
 
 - `art` - contains pictures and arts not used in the code.
@@ -22,6 +49,8 @@ To get into the whitelist just write a ingame message to the account.
 be created if you compile a program.
 - `htmldocs` - is not pushed to the git repository but contains all
 automatically generated documentation.
+- `ressources` - is not pushed to the git repository but contains all
+the data used in source code but not being source code itself (e.g. databases).
 - `src` - is the root folder for all programs except tests.
 - `tests` - contains all tests.
 
@@ -32,11 +61,12 @@ For this reason it is not saved in this repository.
 To extract it into html (assuming you want the documentation for `game.nim`)
 run `nim doc --project --index:on --outdir:htmldocs game.nim`.
 
-## General Design Choices
+## Additional Documentation
 
 ### Moves
 
-Moves are read from the commandline as [pure coordinate notation](https://www.chessprogramming.org/Algebraic_Chess_Notation#Pure_coordinate_notation).
+Moves are read from the commandline as
+[pure coordinate notation](https://www.chessprogramming.org/Algebraic_Chess_Notation#Pure_coordinate_notation).
 The inner program will convert this notation to a move-tuple.
 
 ### Board Representation
@@ -53,31 +83,40 @@ For the evaluation function each piece has a corresponding value.
 Additionally [piece-square tables](https://www.chessprogramming.org/Piece-Square_Tables)
 are used.
 
-## Contributing
-
-### Setup
-
-To setup the project for development you need to create the file
-`src/secret.nim`.
-It should contain values for the following variables:
-
-```nim
-let projectdir* = "<absolute path to root dir of ychess>"
-let api_token* = "<lichess api token for bot>"
-```
-
 ### Code Style Guide
 
+Make sure to take a look at the
+[official nim style guide](https://nim-lang.org/docs/nep1.html).
+All conventions should be applied to this code.
+
+Additionally there are a bunch of steps to make the code more consistent.
+
+#### Constants
+
+Constants should start with an uppercase letter but shouldn't be written in all
+caps (`const FooBar = 2`).
+
+#### Whitespaces
+
 Basic arithmetic operations should be surrounded by spaces for example: `1 + 3`.
 This however is not true for negation of a single value (`-1`) or if the
 arithmetic operation is done inside array brackets or in iterators (`a+1..3`,
 `a[c+3]`).
 
+#### Function calls
+
 Determining the length of a string, array, etc should not be done via a function
 (`len(array)`) but by appending it like `array.len`.
+In the same style function calls should be done (`chess.convertToFen()` instead
+of `convertToFen(chess)`).
+This however is not true if the function takes a first argument that is not an
+abstract datatype like the joinPath function (all the parameters are strings).
+
+#### booleans and logic
 
 If statements should not contain outer brackets.
 In some cases (especially concatenations of `and` and `or`) inner brackets are
 useful to increase readability in complexer logic formulas.
 
-When assigning booleans with logical formulas outer brackets are expected.
+When assigning booleans with logical formulas outer brackets are expected
+(`var boolVar = (1 == 1)`).

TODO.md

@@ -4,5 +4,4 @@ This is a list of features that are to be implemented.
 
 - Opening Book
 - Endgame Table
-- Installation script for easy setup of the repo
 - Docker integration

createCfg.nim

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+import os
+
+import src/project
+
+let projDir = getProjRootDir()
+var tmpPath: string
+
+for dir in ["src", "tests"]:
+  tmpPath = joinPath(projDir, dir)
+  var f = open(joinPath(tmpPath, "nim.cfg"), fmWrite)
+  f.writeLine("--outdir:\"" & joinPath(projDir, "bin", dir) & "\"")
+  f.writeLine("--path:\"" & joinPath(projDir, "src") & "\"")
+  f.close()

src/engine/lichessBridge.nim

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ import nimpy
 import asyncnet, asyncdispatch
 
 import chess
-import secret
+import engine/secret
 import engine/engine
 
 let berserk = pyImport("berserk")

src/engine/nim.cfg

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
---outdir:"../../bin/src"

src/engine/openingBook.nim

@@ -3,10 +3,12 @@ import sequtils
 import strutils
 import sugar
 import tables
+import os
 
 include chess
 
 import secret
+import project
 
 type
   BookMove* = object
@@ -20,7 +22,7 @@ type
     rating*: int # `rating` is the average rating of the player to move.
 
 
-let dbConn = projectdir & "src/engine/openings.db"
+let dbConn = joinPath(getProjRootDir(), "ressources/openings.db")
 let dbUser = ""
 let dbPasswd = ""
 let dbName = ""

src/nim.cfg

@@ -1,2 +0,0 @@
---outdir:"../bin/src"
---path:"."

src/project.nim

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+import os
+
+proc getProjRootDir*(): string =
+  ## Returns the root directory for the ychess project.
+  var maxDepth = 4
+  var path = os.getCurrentDir()
+  var projectDir: string
+  while maxDepth > 0:
+    if dirExists(joinPath(path, "src")):
+      projectDir = path
+      break
+    else:
+      path = parentDir(path)
+    maxDepth -= 1
+  return projectDir

tests/nim.cfg

@@ -1,2 +0,0 @@
---path:"../src/"
---outdir:"../bin/tests/"