SCID to PGN Converter

A command-line tool written in Rust to convert SCID chess databases (.si4/.sg4/.sn4) to PGN format. This also serves as an experiment with vibe coding from an AI skeptic.

Features

Convert SCID databases to standard PGN format
Support for game metadata (players, events, sites, dates, ratings)
Optional inclusion of variations and comments
Progress reporting for large databases
Force overwrite protection

Installation

cd scidtopgn
cargo build --release

The binary will be available at target/release/scidtopgn.

Usage

# Convert a SCID database to PGN
scidtopgn /path/to/database

# Specify output file
scidtopgn /path/to/database -o output.pgn

# Include variations and comments
scidtopgn /path/to/database --variations --comments

# Limit number of games exported
scidtopgn /path/to/database --max-games 1000

# Force overwrite existing output file
scidtopgn /path/to/database --force

Arguments

DATABASE: Path to the SCID database (without extension - will look for .si4, .sg4, .sn4)
-o, --output FILE: Output PGN file (if not specified, uses database name with .pgn extension)
-f, --force: Force overwrite existing output file
-v, --variations: Include variations in PGN output
-c, --comments: Include comments in PGN output
--max-games N: Maximum number of games to export (0 = all games)

File Format Support

This tool supports SCID database format version 4, which consists of three files:

.si4: Index file containing meta-information for each game
.sg4: Game file containing actual moves, variations and comments
.sn4: Name file containing player names, tournament names, etc.

Current Limitations

This is an initial implementation with the following limitations:

Date parsing: The SCID binary date format is not correctly parsed yet. Dates show as "????.??.??" for now.
Move parsing: The SCID move encoding is very complex and not fully implemented yet. Games will be exported with metadata but moves are currently placeholders.
Name parsing: The .sn4 name file parsing is simplified and uses placeholder names.
Variations and comments: While the structure is in place, full parsing of variations and comments from the .sg4 file is not yet implemented.

Development Status

This project follows Rust best practices for CLI applications:

Modular structure with separate modules for SCID parsing and PGN export
Error handling using std::io::Result
Command-line argument parsing with clap
Proper project structure with src/, Cargo.toml, etc.

Contributing

The main areas that need work:

SCID move decoding: Implement the complex move encoding used by SCID
Name file parsing: Properly parse the .sn4 name file format
Variation support: Parse and export chess variations
Comment support: Parse and export chess comments and annotations

Architecture

src/
├── main.rs              # CLI entry point and argument parsing
├── scid/                # SCID database parsing
│   ├── mod.rs           # Module exports
│   ├── database.rs      # Main database coordination
│   ├── index.rs         # .si4 index file parsing
│   ├── names.rs         # .sn4 name file parsing
│   ├── games.rs         # .sg4 game file parsing
│   └── moves.rs         # Move encoding/decoding
└── pgn/                 # PGN export functionality
    ├── mod.rs           # Module exports
    └── exporter.rs      # PGN file generation

License

MIT OR Apache-2.0

nloding/scidtopgn