While building the picoEngine in C++, I will often be wondering what the engine is thinking. One of the problems is that I can not “see” the engine’s board, so I don’t know why it would make a particular move. So, I added a print function. This also is in keeping with my “engine mentor” Logic Crazy, who often used this technique so he could evaluate the board position.
The code is rather straight forward:
string printBoard = “”;

for (int i = 0; i < 64; i++){

printBoard = printBoard + theBoard[i];

}

cout << printBoard << ” ” << whitesTurn << ” ” << Kcastle

<< ” ” << Qcastle << ” ” << kcastle << ” ” << qcastle

<< ” ” << moveSince << ” ” << turnCount << endl;
Not only did it work, but it seems to be rather helpful. Now, as I work on inserting positions via FEN and the startpos moves system that is defined in the UCI, it makes checking my work easy. Here is a screen shot of it in action:
Linux – keep it simple.