ChessboardFormatMicroservice

Disclaimers:

• This microservice, but especially the install.sh script has only been tested in a Linux environment. Compatibility with other operating systems is not guaranteed.
• Only PGN is supported as an input notation at the moment
• The microservice is not yet able to detect incorrectly formatted inputs

Setup

Prerequisites

• Git
• Python3
• Pip
• Recommended: python3-venv

Installation

Bash:

./install.sh

Running

Bash:

# Create a new terminal and navigate to it
python3 src/formatServer.py
# Go back to the original terminal for example
python3 src/formatClient.py

Requesting data from the microservice

  # example_client.py

  # Connect to the gRPC server
  channel = grpc.insecure_channel("localhost:50051")

  # Create stub
  stub = jsonFormat_pb2_grpc.jsonFormatServiceStub(channel)
  pgn_data = """
[Event "Test Game"]
[Site "Local"]
[Date "2026.05.18"]
[Round "1"]
[White "WhitePlayer"]
[Black "BlackPlayer"]
[Result "*"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 *
"""
  request = jsonFormat_pb2.request(
    notationType="PGN",
    boardData=pgn_data,
    isCLI="NoCLI"
  )

  response = stub.PGNtoBoard(request)

Request Fields

Field	Type	Description
notationType	string	Represents the form of notation. Currently only PGN is supported
boardData	string	String representing the board in the specified notation
isCLI	string	CLI if the caller wants an array of strings. NoCLI for JSON return

Receiving data from the microservice

  # Continuing from the request
  response = stub.PGNtoBoard(request)

  print("===== Server Response =====")
  print(f"Error Message  : {response.errorMsg}")
  print(f"Chessboard Response: \n{response.chessboard}")

Response fields

Field	Type	Description
errorMsg	string	Empty if no error is encountered, otherwise provides a descriptive error message
chessboard	json or string[]	If the value for isCLI is "CLI", returns a string[], otherwise JSON representing the board state