Arena 3.5 and EGTB's (Part 2)

I have that information about Scid vs. PC from my old forum and a link to their website. I'll definitely check it out. And that trick with DOS command to merge files as well. Thanks. Now, check this out. I've just been able to merge two relatively big PGN files virtually instantly using Arena 3.5. The way I did it is as follows: I opened one PGN file and opened its Game List. Then selected all games in it by right clicking and then choosing "Select All". Then I right clicked again and chose "Save selected games". The browser popped up saying, I think, "Save game as PGN file" and, after I chose another of the two files I wanted to merge, Arena successfully appended all games  from the first file (11,113 games, 6.4 MB) at the end of the second (20,854 games, 12.9 MB)!!! I even checked total numbers to make sure they match.

But still, you never know...

I was also thinking about PGN Mentor software (about $25) but I want to hear about it more before buying it...

Indeed, commands are typically run from the command-prompt window, which should be in your 'Windows accessories' menu group of the start menu on Win 7. Like with the GUI you first must go to where the PGN files you want to act on are, for which there is a 'cd' command ('change directory') and then type the commands to act on those PGN file. 'type' is the Windows command for displaying the contents of one or more text files in the command-prompt window. "type XXX" would show you the content of file XXX. "type XXX YYY" would show you the content of files XXX and YYY, one after the other. You can always 'catch' the output of any command on a file ZZZ, by writing "> ZZZ" behind it (the '>' symbolizing an arrow). And when a filename contains a '*', this is interpreted as a 'wildcard', matching any (part of a) filename.

So when you open the command-prompt window, and type something like

cd C:\chess\my games\

type *.pgn > collection

the type command will output all files with extension pgn that are in the folder C:\chess\my games\ behind each other, and write that output on the file 'collection' in the same folder.

OK, it looks like that method with Arena does work up to a certain file size. I think the problem I was having was due to the fact that when you said "large files", I was assuming you meant "LARGE files". I was trying to merge six files resulting in a total file size of about 3.77 GB and over 6.6 million games. Arena seemed to stop working with a file size of about 2.11 GB (a little over 3.9 million games). If you stay considerably under that limit, you might be OK.

I have no idea what the hell is going on here in this thread. but I think I wish I did.

Thanks, Mr. HGMuller, you're a great teacher... I'll definitely try those commands to merge files. And, also, thank you for explaining us that staff about DTM vs DTZ. I'm still digesting that information and I'll definitely get back to you on that subject, if you don't mind .

By the way, everybody, how do I open DOS command window?

Click on the Windows Start button, and in the search box, enter the three letters cmd. It should be the first hit of the search.

I think, I got DOS command window... Just "Windows key" + R and then type cmd

perhaps completely irrelevent. but as dos prompt is a bit out of use in current versions of windows, I've had great success downloading and using the program 'DOS box' for any of my old dos needs. it works wonders.

I agree, for old DOS games and apps, DosBox is great. Actually, I use the D-Fend Reloaded front end, which includes DosBox.

As a followup to the discussion about the type command for merging PGN files:

The only potential "gotcha" for using the type command is that you should ensure that each PGN file to be merged ends with a blank line. (Either the VIM or Cream freeware text editors work well for this purpose.) If one or more PGN files do NOT end with a blank line, then after the PGN files are merged, in one or more locations, two games will be run together. Fortunately, Scid or Scid vs. PC is smart enough to detect this problem and will correct for it. However, Arena is not that smart and will not detect the first game of the two "run together" games.

https://github.com/olleeriksson/merge-pgn

or at the command prompt:

(windows) type: copy *.pgn combined_games.txt

(linux) type: cat *.pgn > combined_games.txt

Then rename the combined_games.txt to combined_games.pgn

I created a 'batch file' script that i just place in the same directory of the pgn's I want to combine. That saves me from having to use the terminal window. Just click on it and it runs and then rename the output file to 'whatever.pgn' Then bring that into Chessbase.