Command line

The ringmaster expects two command line arguments: the pathname of the control file and an action:

ringmaster [options] <code>.ctl run
ringmaster [options] <code>.ctl show
ringmaster [options] <code>.ctl reset
ringmaster [options] <code>.ctl check
ringmaster [options] <code>.ctl report
ringmaster [options] <code>.ctl stop

The control file must have extension .ctl.

The default action is run, so running a competition is normally a simple line like:

$ ringmaster competitions/test.ctl

See Stopping competitions for the various ways to stop the ringmaster.

The following actions are available:

run

Starts the competition running. If the competition has been run previously, it continues from where it left off.

show

Prints a report of the competition’s current status. This can be used for both running and stopped competitions.

reset

Cleans up the competition completely. This deletes all output files, including the competition’s state file.

check

Runs a test invocation of the competition’s players. This is the same as the Startup checks, except that any output the players send to their standard error stream will be printed.

report

Rewrites the competition report file based on the current status. This can be used for both running and stopped competitions.

stop

Tells a running ringmaster for the competition to stop as soon as the current games have completed.

The following options are available:

--parallel <N>, -j <N>

Play N simultaneous games.

--quiet, -q

Disable the on-screen reporting; see Quiet mode.

--max-games <N>, -g <N>

Maximum number of games to play in the run; see Running competitions.

--log-gtp

Log all GTP traffic; see Logging.