Assertion error in win compilation?

[rwbc]

Hello Oscar,

When compiling Dratini for windows and let it start from cmd it will always crash after its first move,
with the error message below (also I see no thinking output except the final ove BTW)

Assertion failed: go_struct->param_name == MOVETIME, file src/uci.cpp, line 79

This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

I have to mention that I also need to insert includes of <assert.h> in three files,
in board/move and uci.cpp, to make it compile at all.

Do you have any idea what the problem might be? Oh, not to forget this was for revision 69.

Guenther

[obalcells]

Hi Guenther,

First of all I wanted to say that I am very pleasantly surprised to find out that some person in the Internet is trying to run my engine. So thanks for the interest. However, I have to say that Dratini is very far from being ready. I haven't even tried to compile it on Windows yet, only for macOS, so you might encounter more errors after this one.

Plausible error explanation (you can ignore this part)

I'm guessing this error is being triggered because of the weird way in which I have to pass the function arguments into a threaded function in 'uci.cpp'. For handling protocol input/output I have an infinite loop and a function which only handles the 'go' command. I'm assuming you know about UCI quite a bit more than me based on what I see on your website. Anyways, when I start a thread I attach it to the 'process_go' function and I pass a struct as an argument, which contains the information for the search. I can only pass void pointers, so I have to convert my struct pointer into a void pointer and do the conversion the other way around inside the function. The assert is triggered because the information in the struct isn't being 'recovered' when doing the reconversion inside the function. The conversion is a bit volatile, in the sense that if I change the code just a little, it no longer works and I really don't understand why.

How I'll fix the issue

I'll just create a new version without thread argument so that you can (probably) run the engine without this error. The engine will work just the same since I don't handle time controls with the go command. Just download the latest version in the master branch.

BTW, my UCI implementation is still in an 'early-stage' (= it sucks). I don't handle time controls or search options, or anything really. I just wanted to be able to play the engine with a graphical interface and the quickest way to do it was with UCI. So you might have to wait a little bit to add the engine to your list, since I wouldn't consider this to be a UCI engine yet.

Oscar

[rwbc]

Hey Oscar,

Thanks for the detailed infos about the future plans and the current state of Dratini
and finally for what might trigger the assertion error in WIN!

I have put Dratini on my 'waiting list' meanwhile (TOC sheet), so I won't forget it and will check
your progress from time to time :)

Good luck.
Guenther