sgfutils

The package sgfutils contains a few command line utilities that help working with SGF files that describe go (igo, weiqi, baduk) games. This page is about sgf.

sgf

% sgf [options] [files]

The program sgf reads an SGF file from stdin, polishes it a bit, and writes it to stdout. For example,

% sgf < in.sgf > out.sgf

turns

% cat in.sgf
(;PB[Cho Chikun]BR[9th dan]PW[Takemiya Masaki]WR[9-Dan]DT[2/3 October 1996]
KM[5 1/2]RE[B+11.5];B[pd];W[dp];B[pp];W[dd];B[fq];W[dn];B[jp];W[qk];B[qm];W[pg];
B[nd];W[qf];B[qe];W[pj];B[cl];W[ci];B[el];W[fp];B[gp];W[fo];B[er];W[dr];B[dq];
W[cq];B[eq];W[bp];B[ei];W[dg];B[fc];W[dc];B[ic];W[cj];B[eg];W[df];
B[oq];W[hn];B[gl];W[hp];B[hq];W[go];B[gq];W[dk];B[gj];W[dl]C[];C[...])

into

% cat out.sgf
(;
PB[Cho Chikun]
BR[9d]
PW[Takemiya Masaki]
WR[9d]
KM[5.5]
RE[B+11.5]
DT[1996-10-02,03]

;B[pd];W[dp];B[pp];W[dd];B[fq];W[dn];B[jp];W[qk];B[qm];W[pg]
;B[nd];W[qf];B[qe];W[pj];B[cl];W[ci];B[el];W[fp];B[gp];W[fo]
;B[er];W[dr];B[dq];W[cq];B[eq];W[bp];B[ei];W[dg];B[fc];W[dc]
;B[ic];W[cj];B[eg];W[df];B[oq];W[hn];B[gl];W[hp];B[hq];W[go]
;B[gq];W[dk];B[gj];W[dl];
C[...]
)

It tries to normalize some fields such as rank and date and komi, and complains when it does not understand the date.

Options:

-nn Do not normalize or reorder the property fields
-nd Do not normalize the date field

-d Report (to stderr) what was changed in the dates

% sgf -d < in.sgf > /dev/null
date 2/3 October 1996 becomes 1996-10-02,03

-c Strip comments and variations. See also sgfmerge, that can strip more.
-x Split a single file that contains several games into output files that each contain a single game. Output filenames are constructed from ID and/or DT properties, or a counter. The output will be polished like all sgf output files. See sgfsplit for a bare splitter, that does not polish and gives greater control over the resulting filenames.
-x# Extract game number # from a multi-game file.

When given several input files, sgf will concatenate them, and output a game collection.