7

I am building an app that allows the user to track openings in visual form. They will make moves on the board and the name of the opening and common next moves will be displayed. Now I need some data to do this. First is a database of games to search so I can work out the most common next moves. This I have done by downloading PGN files.

Secondly, I need data on the opening names. I understand there is an Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings which has named and categorised thousands of openings. Does anyone know if this encyclopaedia is available in machine readable form (eg an xml or db file)? Either free or for a small fee?

Ian Parry
  • 288
  • 1
  • 5
  • For anyone interested this app is now available for android at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.parryapps.chessopenings Please give a good rating if you enjoy – Ian Parry May 07 '19 at 06:28

1 Answers1

12

SCID has a text file that you can use. It begins like this:

# scid.eco
#
# Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings file for Scid vs. PC
#
# Copyright (C) 1999- Shane Hudson and others.
# Last updated: Febuary, 2014
#
# In addition to standard ECO definitions, scid.eco allows for extensions:
# Each basic code can have a lower case letter extension (a-z), and an extra
# level (1-4). So the order of ECO codes for A00 is:
# A00, A00a, A00a1, A00a2, A00a3, A00a4, A00b, A00b1, ..., A00z4.
#
# You can convert this file to PGN format with the "eco2pgn.py" script,
# and to EPD with the "eco2epd" (use "make eco2pgn").

A00a "Start"  *
A00b "Barnes Opening"  1.f3 *
A00b "Fried fox"  1.f3 e5 2.Kf2 *
A00c "Kadas Opening"  1.h4 *
A00d "Clemenz Opening"  1.h3 *
A00e "Ware Opening"  1.a4 *
TRiG
  • 115
  • 5
ABCD
  • 22,419
  • 2
  • 43
  • 82