FIDE Ratings Scripts

This repository contains two Python scripts to download, store, and query FIDE chess player ratings from the FIDE database. The first script downloads and processes the list of FIDE players, storing the information in a local file. The second script queries the file and outputs player records based on input FIDE IDs.

Table of Contents

• Requirements
• Installation
  • Usage
    1. FIDE Ratings Download and Storage Script
    2. Query FIDE Records and Output to CSV
  • Example Usage

Requirements

To run these scripts, you need Python 3 and the following Python libraries:

* sqlite3 (part of the Python standard library)
* urllib (for downloading the FIDE files)
* xml (for XML parsing)
* tabulate (for pretty printing the output on the terminal)
* argparse (for handling command-line arguments)
* hashlib (for checking if the FIDE database has been updated)

You will also need to install sqlite3

Installation

In the following instalation commands are provided for windows (linux and mac users very likely have all the needed software).

Install python (open a terminal and type winget install python3) and sqlite3 (type in the terminal winget install sqlite.sqlite). From this repository download the files fide_download.py and fide_query.py. Using pip3 install all the python modules that are not installed by default. Very likely the only one missing is tabulate Open a terminal (cmd) and type:

pip3 install tabulate

Usage

FIDE Ratings Download and Storage Script

The script fide_download.py performs the following steps: (1) downloads the players_list_xml.zip file from the FIDE website, (2) if a local players_list_xml.zip file exists the script detects if the new file is different from the last one and finally, (3) if the new and old downloaded files are different the downloaded data is preprocess. Execute it from a terminal (cmd) as (in the terminal you must be in the same directory in which you downloaded the scripts):

python3 fide_download.py

Depending on your computer and conectivity this step may take one or two minutes. Remember that FIDE updates this databases monthly.

The player information includes fields such as fide_id, name, country, sex, title, rating, and others. No command-line options are required for this script, as it automatically downloads and processes the FIDE data.

Query FIDE Records and Output to CSV

The script fide_query.py takes a file with FIDE IDs (one per line) created with a text editor as notepad, retrieves the corresponding records from the downloaded information, and outputs the results to a CSV file. The results are also displayed on the console.

python fide_query.py <input_file> <output_file.csv> --fields <fields> --database <database>

Arguments:

• input_file: A file containing FIDE IDs, one per line.
• output_file.csv: The CSV file where the results will be saved (extension must be csv).
• --fields: (Optional) A space-separated list of fields to include in the output. Default fields are fide_id, name, country, and rating.
• --database: (Optional) The SQLite database file. The default is fide_ratings.db.

Available Fields:

• fide_id: The player's unique FIDE ID.
• name: The player's name.
• country: The player's country.
• sex: The player's gender.
• title: The player's chess title (if any).
• rating: The player's standard FIDE rating.
• games_played: The number of standard games played.
• rapid_rating: The player's rapid FIDE rating.
• rapid_games: The number of rapid games played.
• blitz_rating: The player's blitz FIDE rating.
• blitz_games: The number of blitz games played.
• birthday: The player's birth year.

Example:

python fide_query.py fide_ids.txt output.csv --fields fide_id name country rating blitz_rating

Example Usage

FIDE Ratings Download and Storage Script

To download and store the FIDE ratings data in a local file:

python fide_download.py

Query FIDE Records and Output to CSV

Suppose you have a file called fide_ids.txt containing the following FIDE IDs:

22226141
32066171
22298851

To query the database for these FIDE IDs and output specific fields (fide_id, name, country, rating) to both the terminal and a CSV file (from a terminal (cmd) execute):

python fide_query.py fide_ids.txt output.csv --fields fide_id name country rating

The output will look like this in the terminal:

FIDE Records:

+----------+--------------------------+---------+--------+
| fide_id  |           name           | country | rating |
+----------+--------------------------+---------+--------+
| 22226141 | Martinez Fernandez, Raul |   ESP   |  2149  |
| 22298851 |  Hernandez Ramos, David  |   ESP   |  2101  |
| 32066171 |  Gomez Carreno, Martin   |   ESP   |  2124  |
+----------+--------------------------+---------+--------+

And the same results will be saved in output.csv as follows:

fide_id,name,country,rating
22226141,"Martinez Fernandez, Raul",ESP,2149
22298851,"Hernandez Ramos, David",ESP,2101
32066171,"Gomez Carreno, Martin",ESP,2124

this file may be read from excel or similar programs.