Need info on gnuchess/chesstool interface

[kak at hico2.westmark.com]

I'm trying to obtain some documentation on how
chesstool (or Xchess) talks to gnuchess.

Another person and I are trying to put togeather a nice chess
front end for a system not running sunview or xwindows.

We were figuring on using gnuchess for the backend for this,
but I can't find a specification for how gnuchess and chesstool
talk to each other, and any experiments with gnuchessr don't seem
to match what the X program code seems to be looking for.
I can handle the pipes/exec/signals, but I need to know
how the programs communicate after that.

By adding the -DSUNTOOLS flag when I make gnuchessr,
I've gotten something LIKE what I'd expect for output
to be used by chesstool.  But I still don't know
how to get the code to, say, switch sides:  If I use
"black", like the help command (which works) claims,
gnuchess mearly responds with some illegal move, like
moving a rook that can't move.

I'm assuming that SOMEWHERE there is a specification on what
chess tool is expecting from its exec'd logic program.
I'd assume that SOMEWHERE there is a specification that says
what gnuchessr (with -DSUNTOOLS) allows as input.
I'd assume that these two should be very similar.
I don't remember this being in the chesstool manual (back when
I had access to a Sun workstation).
Does anybody know either how chesstool recognizes moves
from an external program, or what gnuchessr accepts as input?

(probably best to respond by email) 

                               Kris A. Kugel
                             ( 908 ) 842-2707
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