writing chess engine for arena gui

I'm interested in implementing a chess engine for arena GUI http://www.playwitharena.com. Do you know some sort of information regarding the specific guidelines that you mus开发者_开发知识库t follow in order to make the engine usable in Arena (ie so that you can actually import the engine from Arena).

Also do you think it's possible to implement the Arena chess engine using Java or will I need to use C++

Also if you know any other board GUIs that can import engines, especially if the engine can be written in java, please say so.

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You can write your engine in any language and have it work with Arena, provided it speaks the WinBoard or UCI protocol. Both of these involve having your engine (which runs as a separate process) input and output plain text. You can write it in C++, Java, Visual Basic, COBOL, Forth, or whatever else you fancy. (Note: I do not recommend attempting to write a chess engine in COBOL.)

Much the same is true for all the other chess engine GUIs you might choose to target (there are quite a few, and you can find several just by putting chess gui into Google): they all understand WinBoard or UCI or both, and they don't care what language the engine is implemented in.

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Writing an engine that can be used in arena is really easy. Your engine simply need to read and write on the standards inputs and outputs stream (stdin and stdout). Your engine need to talk a specific protocol and you have the choice between the UCI protocal, that is easier to implement, but only supported by a couple on interface or the xBoard protocol that is supported by more interface both on Windows and Linux.

I would prefer the xboard protocol, since it's more widely used and allow the engine more control (for example it allow the engine to use it's own opening book).