Freecell Solver "Hacking"-Related Issues

Benchmarking a Freecell Solver Release

Requirements: perl-5.8.x or above, CMake, gcc, bash and a working pthreads-devel package.

Download the Freecell Solver .tar.bz2 archive from http://fc-solve.berlios.de/ .
Unpack and cd to the freecell-solver-* directory.
Run ./Tatzer -l tt --max-bench-threads-num=4 , where 4 is the maximal number of threads you’d like to run which is a function of the number of processors/cores your computer has.
Type make to build everything.
Type make bench.
You can use perl scripts/time-fcs.pl dump DUMPS/* and copy-and-paste the results to the Freecell Solver developers with specifications of your computer that are as detailed as possible.

Getting the test suite up and running

These are instruction how to get the test suite up and running:

Install the dependencies: Subversion, CMake (2.6.3 or later only), make, gcc, g\++, valgrind, perl5 (at least perl-5.8.9, perl-5.10.0 or above is recommended),

+ * On Debian:
```
apt-get install subversion cmake make gcc g++ valgrind perl
```
- On Mandriva:
  urpmi subversion cmake make gcc g++ valgrind perl perl-devel
Install the dependencies of the test suite:
- Download local::lib from http://search.cpan.org/dist/local-lib/ and follow the instructions to set it up.
- Restart bash (no need to restart the computer, just open a new terminal window).
  export PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT=1 perl -Mlocal::lib -MCPAN -e 'install Task::FreecellSolver::Testing'

Install the development headers of libtap ( http://jc.ngo.org.uk/trac-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/LibTap ).

On Mandriva:
```
# urpmi libtap-devel
```

On Debian:

tar -xvf /home/shlomif/Desktop/tap-1.01.tar.gz
cd tap-1.01
./configure --prefix="$HOME/apps/libtap"
make CFLAGS+=-UHAVE_LIBPTHREAD
make install
# For gcc finding tap.h in the includes
echo 'export CPATH="$HOME/apps/libtap/include:$CPATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
# For CMake finding libtap.
echo 'export CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$HOME/apps/libtap:$CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc

Check out the latest Freecell Solver sources:

svn co https://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/fc-solve/trunk/

$ cd trunk/fc-solve/source/
Configure the Freecell Solver build
```
$ ./Tatzer
```
Build Freecell Solver:
```
$ make
```
Test Freecell Solver:
```
$ make test
```

Style Guidelines

Freecell Solver uses its own style based on the preferences of its primary author (Shlomi Fish). Some guidelines for the style will be given here.

4 Spaces for Indentation

The Freecell Solver source code should be kept free of horizontal tabs (\t, HT, \x09) and use spaces alone. Furthermore, there should be a 4 wide space indentation inside blocks:

if (COND())
{
    int i;

    printf("%s\n", "COND() is successful!");

    for (i=0 ; i < 10 ; i++)
    {
        ...
    }
}

Curly Braces Alignment

The opening curly brace of an if-statement or a for-statement should be placed below the statement on the same level as the other line, and the inner block indented by 4 spaces. A good example can be found in the previous section. Here are some bad examples:

if ( COND() ) {
    /* Bad because the opening brace is on the same line.
}

if ( COND() )
    {
    /* Bad because the left and right braces are indented along with
    the block. */
    printf(....)
    }

/* GNU Style - fear and loathing. */
if ( COND() )
  {
    printf(....)
  }

Comments should precede the lines performing the action

Comments should come one line before the line that they explain:

/* Check if it can be moved to something on the same stack */
for(dc=0;dc<c-1;dc++)
{
    .
    .
    .
}

TODO: Fill in

Identifier Naming Conventions

Here are some naming conventions for identifiers:

Please do not use capital letters (including not CamelCase) - use all lowercase letters with words separated by underscores. Remember, C is case sensitive.
Note, however, that comments should be phrased in proper English, with proper Capitalization and distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters. So should the rest of the Freecell Solver internal and external documentation.
Some commonly used abbreviations:

max - maximum
num - numbers
cols - columns
dest - destination
src - source
ds - dest stack
stack - usually the source stack
ptr - pointer
val - value
c - the card index/position within the column

Don’t comment-out - use #if 0 to temporarily remove code

Code should not be commented-out using gigantic /* … */ comments. Instead, it should be out-blocked using #if 0…#endif.

In Perl code, one can use the following POD paradigm to remove a block of code:

=begin Removed

Removed code here.

=end Removed

=cut