libscid A C ABI library for chess games, PGN, Scid databases and ECO codes.

libscid is a standalone extraction of the library-grade parts of Scid and ScidUp. It is intended for chess tools, analysis pipelines, language bindings and GUIs that need mature PGN, game, database and ECO functionality without depending on a desktop application.

What It Provides

• Opaque handles for positions, games, game cursors, PGN export options, ECO books and databases.
• PGN import, authoring, immutable cursor traversal, merge and export workflows.
• Board state, legal move handling, FEN, UCI and SAN helpers.
• Scid database creation, opening, listing, editing, import and export.
• ECO code parsing and opening-position lookup.

Start Here

• Quick Start: compile a small C ABI consumer with cc, Make or CMake.
• Installation: install a release archive or build and install from source.
• Examples and Recipes: choose a C ABI example by task.
• API Surface: understand the opaque handles, ownership rules and PGN game workflow.
• API Documentation: browse the generated public header reference.

Minimal CMake Consumer

cmake_minimum_required( VERSION 3.23 )

project( libscid-consumer LANGUAGES C )

find_package( libscid CONFIG REQUIRED )

add_executable( libscid-consumer main.c )
set_target_properties(
    libscid-consumer
    PROPERTIES
        C_STANDARD 11
        C_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON
        C_EXTENSIONS OFF )
target_link_libraries( libscid-consumer PRIVATE LibScid::LibScid )

Configure it with CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH pointing at a libscid installation:

cmake -S . -B _build -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/path/to/libscid
cmake --build _build

Licence

libscid is distributed under the GNU GPL v2; see COPYING. Unless stated otherwise, modifications and additions in this repository are licensed under the same terms.