Chessie

A fast chess library, suitable for use in chess engines.

Overview

This library provides a clean, easy-to-use API for creating and working with chess games. It supports Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN) strings for creating positions, as well as Universal Chess Interface (UCI) notation for pieces, squares, moves, and more.

One minor goal of mine for this project was to include documentation tests for every function. As a result, nearly every function in this library has examples of how to use them that double as unit tests.

Examples

Simple performance test (perft):

use chessie::Game;

fn perft(game: &Game, depth: usize) -> u64 {
    // Recursion limit; return 1, since we're fathoming this node.
    if depth == 0 {
        return 1;
    }

    // Recursively accumulate the nodes from the remaining depths
    game.get_legal_moves().into_iter().fold(0, |nodes, mv| {
        nodes + perft(&game.with_move_made(mv), depth - 1)
    })
}

let game = Game::default(); // Default starting position
let nodes = perft(&game, 2);
assert_eq!(nodes, 400);

• Note: This library has a perft function included.

Only generate moves from specific squares (Knights, in this case):

use chessie::{Game, Color};
let game = Game::default(); // Default starting position
let mask = game.knights(Color::White);
for mv in game.get_legal_moves_from(mask) {
    print!("{mv} ");
}
// b1a3 b1c3 g1f3 g1h3

Only generate moves that capture enemy pieces (en passant excluded):

use chessie::Game;
let game = Game::from_fen("r3k2r/p1ppqpb1/bn2pnp1/3PN3/1p2P3/2N2Q1p/PPPBBPPP/R3K2R w KQkq - 0 1").unwrap();
for mv in game.into_iter().only_captures() {
    print!("{mv} ");
}
// e2a6 g2h3 f3h3 f3f6 d5e6 e5g6 e5d7 e5f7

More examples can be found in the examples/ directory.

Features

Several state-of-the-art chess programming ideas have been incorporated into this library, as well as several Rust-specific paradigms.

Current

• User-friendly, heavily-documented, easy-to-read, safe API.
• (Almost) every function has examples in its documentation.
• Ability to create, modify, and read chess positions.
• Compact representation of primitive types such as squares (8 bits) and moves (16 bits).
• Incremental move generation API through Rust's Iterator trait, and allow generation of moves to/from specific squares (such as only generating moves for pawns, or only generating captures).
• Bulk move generation using some faster techniques than iterators, as well.
• Bitboards for piece layout and move generation.
• Magic Bitboards for sliding piece move generation.
• And many more that I may have neglected to mention

Future

• Support for parsing/writing Extended Position Description (EPD).
• Support for parsing/writing Portable Game Notation (PGN).
• Support for parsing/writing Standard Algebraic Notation (SAN).
• Chess960 support.
• Support for other variants, like Horde Chess.
• Proper support for un-making moves.
• General optimizations. See the "Issues" tab for more.

Acknowledgements:

Special thanks in particular to:

• Sebastian Lague, for his chess programming series on YouTube that ultimate inspired me to do this project.
• The Chess Programming Wiki, and all those who contribute to free, open-source knowledge.
• The folks over at the Engine Programming Discord, for their patience with my silly questions and invaluable help overall.
• Analog-Hors, for an excellent article on magic bitboards

Changelog

• 1.2.1:
  • Fixed major bug causing Zobrist keys to not update properly when making moves on positions (thanks @Serdra on the EP discord).
• 1.2.0:
  • Added Position::can_draw_by_insufficient_material.
  • Fixed bug causing Square::is_light to return the opposite bool.
• 1.1.0:
  • Fixed bug causing illegal positions to crash move generator
  • Implemented FromIterator<Square> for Bitboard.
  • Added function for playing null moves, and adjusted how Game is printed.
• 1.0.0:
  • Massive performance increase (over 200%) in move generation (benchmarks).
  • Game::get_legal_moves now computes legal moves in bulk rather than relying on MoveGenIter::collect.
  • Some breaking changes with method names in Bitboard and other primitives.
  • General code cleanup (more docs, more tests, etc.).
  • Added examples/ and benches.
  • Moved prng.rs into chessie-types so it can be used for magic generation, removing our dependency on rand.
  • Added #[inline(always)] to a lot of functions/methods. Seems to have improved efficiency.
  • Modified CastlingRights and it's storage in Position. Should make Chess960 integration easier later.
• 0.1.0:
  • Initial release