[C_DASS]

I am trying to understand the format used for LIN file but very less information is available in the literature or internet. Can anyone suggest me any relevant literature on LIN file format?



qx|o2|md|4SQJ762H86DJ96CQT8,ST94HAKJD753CK764,SK8HT7542DQ82CJ92|rh||ah||sv|n|pg||

[paulg]

BBO has never made the format public. It was Fred Gitelman's private notation for storing bridge hands and, as I recall, he never intended it to be a standard.

[pilowsky]

C_DASS, on 2021-March-19, 01:41, said:

I am trying to understand the format used for LIN file but very less information is available in the literature or internet. Can anyone suggest me any relevant literature on LIN file format?



qx|o2|md|4SQJ762H86DJ96CQT8,ST94HAKJD753CK764,SK8HT7542DQ82CJ92|rh||ah||sv|n|pg||

Its fairly straightforward.
The hand sits in a 'container'
The front of the container is the board number of a normal 'round'
Here are 12 examples:
As you can see, the Container specifies the Board number, dealer and the vulnerability.
qx|o1|md|3 is the front. |rh||ah|Board 1|sv|0|pg|| is the back
The hands are - in order, South, West and North separated by commas.
eg SQ9HAKT2DAT3CJT53 is the South hand. You have to include an S, H,D,C in each hand even if there are no cards in that suit in the hand.
SJTHQJ93DJ72CK764 is West
and is SA8754H654DK85CA2 North.
BBO autocompletes East when you load it into your account.
The Bridge solver program will read the lin file.

Obviously, you can create any hand you want with this method, load it into a 'container', Save it into a text file and change the name to anything.lin
You can then import your hand into BBO through the -account - deal archive area and replay it.
If you copy and paste the 12 random hands below you will be able to save them as described above.
I hope there aren't any that are too exciting. I haven't tried them.

qx|o1|md|3SQ9HAKT2DAT3CJT53,SJTHQJ93DJ72CK764,SA8754H654DK85CA2|rh||ah|Board 1|sv|0|pg||
qx|o2|md|4SJT42H872DT853CKT,SKQ8765HAKQD2CQJ4,SHT963DKJ764C7632|rh||ah|Board 2|sv|n|pg||
qx|o3|md|1SQ953HJ84D6CQ9843,S64HA96DT2CAKJ652,ST82HT5DAKJ743CT7|rh||ah|Board 3|sv|e|pg||
qx|o4|md|2SKT64H742DJ84CKQ5,S83HAKJ8DKQ6CA932,SAQJ9HT93D53CJ876|rh||ah|Board 4|sv|b|pg||
qx|o5|md|3SAT732HAQ75DQJ8C4,SQJ5HKJ86D76CQJ62,SK94HT92DA94CAK73|rh||ah|Board 5|sv|n|pg||
qx|o6|md|4S6HKQ985DKQ96C985,ST92HA742DJ752CQ3,SAKJ843HJTDT3CAT6|rh||ah|Board 6|sv|e|pg||
qx|o7|md|1SQT98HQJ9543DK3CQ,SAJ53HADJ76CK8543,SK4HKT6DAQ98CT976|rh||ah|Board 7|sv|b|pg||
qx|o8|md|2SQ6H6D8653CKQJ872,SAK53HK8DAKTCA643,S87HAQJ9432DQ94CT|rh||ah|Board 8|sv|0|pg||
qx|o9|md|3S9HAJT76DQ62CAQ63,SKT6H84DK743C9852,SQ8543HQ2DJ85CKT7|rh||ah|Board 9|sv|e|pg||
qx|o10|md|4SKJHQ75DQ974CAK53,ST643HAT2DAJ86CQ8,SAQ875H9643DKTCJ9|rh||ah|Board 10|sv|b|pg||
qx|o11|md|1SKJ92H93DJT65CJ72,S6HQT4DK932CAQT43,SQT7543HKJDAQ8C85|rh||ah|Board 11|sv|0|pg||
qx|o12|md|2SA653HQ82D95CKJ76,SKT42HJ973DAKQC84,SQJ87HT6D872CAQ95|rh||ah|Board 12|sv|n|pg||

[pdfprime]

C_DASS, on 2021-March-19, 01:41, said:

I am trying to understand the format used for LIN file but very less information is available in the literature or internet. Can anyone suggest me any relevant literature on LIN file format?



qx|o2|md|4SQJ762H86DJ96CQT8,ST94HAKJD753CK764,SK8HT7542DQ82CJ92|rh||ah||sv|n|pg||

Maybe not answering your question, but if you pull up a hand in a browser (export handviewer link), all of the relevant info is there about names, cards played, etc in the url.

pc|HK| plays Heart King
mb|2N| makes a 2NT bid.. just look through the url and you'll see most of what you need to see. I change the cards around all the time to make more interesting hands in post-mortems.

[pilowsky]

pdfprime, on 2021-March-19, 09:32, said:

Maybe not answering your question, but if you pull up a hand in a browser (export handviewer link), all of the relevant info is there about names, cards played, etc in the url.

pc|HK| plays Heart King
mb|2N| makes a 2NT bid.. just look through the url and you'll see most of what you need to see. I change the cards around all the time to make more interesting hands in post-mortems.

It's also helpful for changing the names of players to help protect the innocent.
Unfortunately, the Handviewer "container" cannot (correct me if I'm wrong here) be used to upload an external file into your BBO account.

Using the lin file format allows you to acquire any hand from anywhere and then load it onto a teaching table to work out the best line.
WITHIN BBO simply click on the three white lines where the hand is (not the other three white lines) - choose "export" and then "save deal as". now you can collect your hand into a file in your deal archive.

This is 'handy' for deals that get lost from your history (Daylongs for example).

I can now make random hands in google sheets (randarray function etc), pack them into a .lin file container and then load them into BBO. The first one allowed the EW bots to reach a Heart slam - very annoying.
I don't know what sort of cryptography Google uses.

[kladenak]

Not exactly replying to your question, but Richard Pavlicek has a nice file checker and converter of various bridge notation formats, LIN included:

http://www.rpbridge....cgi-bin/rpfc.pl

[pilowsky]

A quick google search suggests that the ".LIN" extension is used in more than one application.
This link says that it is "type 4" - who knows why - and gives an interesting explanation of it. Probably written by one of the BBO people?
https://fileinfo.com/extension/lin

Quote

You will most likely only encounter a Bridge LIN file if you play Bridge on a computer.
Bridge users often share LIN files with other players for tutorial purposes to teach what to do in certain situations.
The files may be created by various Bridge card game programs to be uploaded to Bridge Base Online, which is a website where Bridge players can compete with others around the world.

And then it gives a screenshot that looks like the post I made above.

[richardp]

You can generate hands and then export them to LIN using http://playbridge.com hand generator.
Richard

[armantt2k]

aaBridge has GREAT YouTube tutorial videos on LIN formats.