We Keep Coding

Minimax algorithm doesnt go for mate in chess

My goal is to code a somewhat OK chess engine, in the following position it's a mate in 2 which the engine should easily find with its depth of 4-5.
The first move the AI makes is Ra2 to trap the white king, the white king goes to f1 and instead of mating the AI moves the Rook to c2.
var initial_depth = depth;
var bestMove = null;
var nodes = 0;
var ret = await minimax(position, depth, alpha, beta, maximizingPlayer);
console.log("nodes visited: " + nodes);
return ret;
async function minimax(position, depth, alpha, beta, maximizingPlayer) {
nodes++;
if (maximizingPlayer) {
var validMoves = await getValidMoves(position, ArrtoFEN(position) + " w");
} else {
var validMoves = await getValidMoves(position, ArrtoFEN(position) + " b");
}
if (validMoves.length < 1 || depth == 0) {
var eval = await getEval(position);
return [eval, null];
}
if (maximizingPlayer) {
var maxEval = Number.NEGATIVE_INFINITY;
for (var i = 0; i < validMoves.length; i++) {
var move = validMoves[i];
var testbrd = makeMove(move, position) //not the actual code. shortend for Readability
var eval = await minimax(testbrd, depth - 1, alpha, beta, false);
if (eval[0] > maxEval) {
maxEval = eval[0];
if (initial_depth == depth) {
bestMove = move;
console.log("current bestmove: " + bestMove);
}
}
alpha = Math.max(alpha, eval[0]);
if (beta <= alpha) {
break;
}
}
return [maxEval, bestMove];
} else {
var minEval = Number.POSITIVE_INFINITY;
for (var i = 0; i < validMoves.length; i++) {
var move = validMoves[i];
var testbrd = makeMove(move, position)//not the actual code. shortend for Readability
var eval = await minimax(testbrd, depth - 1, alpha, beta, true);
if (eval[0] < minEval) {
minEval = eval[0];
if (initial_depth == depth) {
bestMove = move;
console.log("current bestmove: " + bestMove);
}
}
beta = Math.min(beta, eval[0]);
if (beta <= alpha) {
break;
}
}
return [minEval, bestMove];
}
}
}

This is because it sees that any move will win, and you don't have a condition that tells the engine that it is better to do mate in 1 move than in 5 moves. If at the end of a search find that you have 0 legal moves and you are in check, then you are checkmated. In this case you want to send back a checkmate score (large negative value) and add the ply from this. This way you will make it better to mate in fewer moves than in a larger amount of moves.
I suggest you go for Negamax alogirthm in stead of minimax. It will mean much less code and much easier to debug.

NodeJS require with asynch functions when synch is wanted

I have the following code
var utils = require(`${__dirname}/../../utils/utils.js`);
...
let object = utils.parse(input);
if (object === undefined){
let helper = utils.recognize(input);
msg.channel.sendMessage("\"" + input + "\" not recognized. Did you mean \"" + helper[0] + "\"?");
object = utils.parse(helper[0]);
}
//code related to object
console.log(object.strLength);
where "parse" tries to match the input to an object in a database, and "recognize" tries to find the best match if the input is spelled incorrectly (Levenshtein) (along with additional info such as how close the match was).
Currently the issue is that the code is ran asynchronously; "object.strLength" returns an undefined before utils.recognize() returns a value. If I copy/paste the recognize() and parse() functions into the file, then the code is run synchronously and I do not run into any issues. However I would rather keep those functions in a separate file as I reuse them in other files.
Is there a way to specify that the functions in utils must be synch? I know that there are libraries that convert asynch into synch but I prefer to use as few libraries as I can help it. I tried to have the recognize functions return a Promise but it ended up as a jumbled mess
edit: here's parse. I did not think it was necessary to answer this question so I did not include it initially:
var db = require(`${__dirname}/../data/database.js`);
...
var parse = (input) => {
let output = db[output];
if (output === null) {
Object.keys(db).forEach((item) => {
if (db[item].num === parseInt(input) || (db[item].color + db[item].type === input)){
output = db[item];
return false;
}
});
}
return output;
}

I solved the issue, thanks everyone. Here's what was wrong, it was with recognize(). It was my mistake to not show the code for it initially.
Original recognize:
var recognize = (item) => {
//iterate through our databases and get a best fit
let bestItem = null;
let bestScore = 99999; //arbitrary large number
//let bestType = null;
//found algorithm online by milot-mirdita
var levenshtein = function(a, b) {
if (a.length == 0) { return b.length; }
if (b.length == 0) { return a.length; }
// swap to save some memory O(min(a,b)) instead of O(a)
if(a.length > b.length) {
let tmp = a;
a = b;
b = tmp;
}
let row = [];
for(let i = 0; i <= a.length; i++) {
row[i] = i;
}
for (let i = 1; i <= b.length; i++) {
let prev = i;
for (let j = 1; j <= a.length; j++) {
let val;
if (b.charAt(i-1) == a.charAt(j-1)) {
val = row[j-1]; // match
} else {
val = Math.min(row[j-1] + 1, // substitution
prev + 1, // insertion
row[j] + 1); // deletion
}
row[j - 1] = prev;
prev = val;
}
row[a.length] = prev;
}
return row[a.length];
}
//putting this here would make the code work
//console.log("hi");
Object.keys(db).forEach((key) => {
if (levenshtein(item, key) < bestScore) {
bestItem = key;
bestScore = levenshtein(item, key);
}
});
return [bestItem, bestScore];
}
My solution was to move the levenshtein function outside of the recognize function, so if I wanted to I can call levenshtein from another function
#user949300 and #Robert Moskal, I changed the forEach loop into a let...in loop. There is no functional difference (as far as I can tell) but the code does look cleaner.
#Thomas, I fixed the let output = db[output]; issue, oops.
Again, thanks for all of your help, I appreciate it. And happy New Year too

Porting breadth-first search to Javascript

I created AI for snake in Python. The game works nicely. I started learning Javascript recently and I tried writting the Javascript equivalent of the game.
The game is played on x*y grid (eg. 30*20). In Python I used (x, y) tuples for game position. In JS I use integers which I map ussing:
function map(x, y) {
return x + y * size.width;
}
function unmap(pos) {
return {x: pos % size.width, y: Math.floor(pos/size.width)};
}
My problem is that the search doesn't work. When I try to create path from it enters infinite loop. The search function is:
function search(start, goal) {
var frontier = new PriorityQueue({
comparator: function(a, b) {
return a.score - b.score;
}
});
frontier.queue({value: start, score: 0});
var cameFrom = {};
cameFrom[start] = null;
while (frontier.length !== 0) {
var current = frontier.dequeue().value;
if (current === goal) {
break;
}
var nbs = neighbors(current);
for(var i = 0; i < nbs.length; i++) {
var next = nbs[i];
if (Object.keys(cameFrom).indexOf(next) === -1) {
var priority = heuristic(goal, next);
frontier.queue({value: next, score: priority});
cameFrom[next] = current;
}
}
}
return cameFrom;
}
I use this priority queue.
The search in Python is more OOP but I don't want to include more code - the question is already long. But I'll include the search:
def search(self, grid, start, goal):
frontier = PriorityQueue()
frontier.put(start, 0)
came_from = {}
came_from[start] = None
while not frontier.empty():
current = frontier.get()
if current == goal:
break
for next in grid.neighbors(current):
if next not in came_from:
priority = self.heuristic(goal, next)
frontier.put(next, priority)
came_from[next] = current
return came_from
If anything more is needed please ask. I'm bad at JS.

Problem was with this line:
if (Object.keys(cameFrom).indexOf(next) === -1) {
I was searching for integer but keys are always strings. You can clearly the behavior in this example:
var foo = {0: "fooBar", 1: "bar"};
console.log("keys", Object.keys(foo));
console.log("int", Object.keys(foo).indexOf(0)); // -1
console.log("string", Object.keys(foo).indexOf("0")); // 0
This is more readable, shorter and works:
if (cameFrom[next] === undefined) {
Thanks to IVlad who pointed out the bad line.

Check for continuous order in array in javascript

var userInput = prompt('enter number here');
var number = new Array(userInput.toString().split(''));
if (number ????){ //checks if the number is in a continuous stream
alert(correct);
}
else{
alert(invalid);
}
In Javascript, what can I do at "????" to check if it is in a continuous order/stream? Also how can I do this so that it only checks for this order/stream after a specific index in the array? Meaning the user enters say "12345678901234" which would pop up correct, but "12347678901234" would pop up invalid?(note there are two 7's) For the second part "3312345678901234" would pop up correct, how can this be implemented?

You can make a function that checks any string for a stream of continuous/increasing alpha-numeric characters starting at a given index like this:
function checkContinuous(str, startIndex) {
startindex = startIndex || 0;
if (str.length <= startIndex) {
return false;
}
var last = str.charCodeAt(startIndex);
for (var i = startIndex + 1; i < str.length; i++) {
++last;
if (str.charCodeAt(i) !== last) {
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
If it's numbers only and wrapping from 9 back to 0 is considered continuous, then it's a little more complicated like this:
function checkContinuous(str, startIndex) {
// make sure startIndex is set to zero if not passed in
startIndex = startIndex || 0;
// skip chars before startIndex
str = str.substr(startIndex);
// string must be at least 2 chars long and must be all numbers
if (str.length < 2 || !/^\d+$/.test(str)) {
return false;
}
// get first char code in string
var last = str.charCodeAt(0);
// for the rest of the string, compare to last code
for (var i = 1; i < str.length; i++) {
// increment last charCode so we can compare to sequence
if (last === 57) {
// if 9, wrap back to 0
last = 48;
} else {
// else just increment
++last;
}
// if we find one char out of sequence, then it's not continuous so return false
if (str.charCodeAt(i) !== last) {
return false;
}
}
// everything was continuous
return true;
}
Working demo: http://jsfiddle.net/jfriend00/rHH4B/

No need for arrays, just back though the string one character at a time.
When you hit a 0, substitute 10, and continue until the number
is not one more than the previous one.
function continuousFromChar(str, start){
start= start || 0;
var i= 0, L= str.length, prev;
while(L){
c= +(str.charAt(-- L)) || 10; // use 10 for 0
prev=+(str.charAt(L- 1));
if(c-prev !== 1) break;
}
return start>=L;
}
var s= "3312345678901234";
continuousFromChar(s,2)
/* returned value: (Boolean)
true
*/

This will do the checking in real-time entry, but a similar principle could be used to check an entry on a button submit or similar. I was not 100% sure as to which way you wanted it, so I went for the live method.
HTML
<input id="stream" type="text" />
Javascript
window.addEventListener("load", function () {
document.getElementById("stream").addEventListener("keyup", function (evt) {
var target = evt.target;
var value = target.value;
var prev;
var last;
var expect;
target.value = value.replace(/[^\d]/, "");
if (value.length > 1) {
prev = parseInt(value.slice(-2, -1), 10);
last = parseInt(value.slice(-1), 10);
expect = prev + 1;
if (expect > 9) {
expect = 0;
}
if (last !== expect) {
target.value = value.slice(0, value.length - 1);
}
}
}, false);
});
On jsfiddle
By changing the value here
if (value.length > 1) {
You can change where the checking starts.
Update: Ok, so it is function that you want, and you insist that it splits the string into an array. Then using the above as a reference, you could convert it to something like this.
Javascript
window.addEventListener("load", function () {
var testStrings = [
"0123456789012",
"0123456789",
"0123455555",
"555012345678901234",
"0123455555"];
function test(string, offset) {
if (typeof string !== "string" || /[^\d]/.test(string)) {
return false;
}
var array = string.split("");
var prev;
var last;
var expect;
return !array.some(function (digit, index) {
if (index >= offset) {
prev = parseInt(array[index - 1], 10);
last = parseInt(digit, 10);
expect = prev + 1;
if (expect > 9) {
expect = 0;
}
if (last !== expect) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
});
}
testStrings.forEach(function (string) {
console.log(string, test(string, 1));
});
});
On jsfiddle
As your question does not fully specify all possibilities, the above will return true for an empty string (""), of course you can simply add a check at the very beginning for that.
I also do not perform any checking for a valid number for your offset, but again this is something simple that you can add.
Of course these are just one (two) of many possible solutions, but hopefully it will set your mind in the right direction of thought.

There are some good answers here, but I would like to show a slight variation. I think it is important to showcase some different aspects of JavaScript and separating interests in code.
Functions as first class objects are cool - the exact rules for "continuous" can be changed with only changing the predicate function. Perhaps we should allow skipping numbers? No problem. Perhaps we allow hex digits? No problem. Just change the appropriate follows function for the specific rules.
This can be implemented generically because strings support indexing. This will work just as well over other array-like objects with an appropriate follows function. Note that there are no string-specific functions used in the continuous function.
Code also on jsfiddle:
// returns true only iff b "follows" a; this can be changed
function follows_1Through9WithWrappingTo0(b,a) {
if (b === "1" && a === undefined) {
// start of sequence
return true;
} else if (b === "0" && a === "9") {
// wrap
return true;
} else {
// or whatever
return (+b) === (+a) + 1;
}
}
function continuous(seq, accordingTo, from) {
// strings can be treated like arrays; this code really doesn't care
// and could work with arbitrary array-like objects
var i = from || 0;
if ((seq.length - i) < 1) {
return true;
}
var a = undefined;
var b = undefined;
for (; i < seq.length; i++) {
b = seq[i];
if (!accordingTo(b, a)) {
return false; // not continuous
}
a = b;
}
return true;
}
function assert(label, expr, value) {
if (!(expr === value)) {
alert("FAILED: " + label);
}
}
var follows = follows_1Through9WithWrappingTo0;
assert("empty1", continuous("", follows), true);
assert("empty2", continuous("foobar", follows, 6), true);
assert("skip", continuous("331234", follows, 2), true);
assert("good 1", continuous("123456789", follows), true);
assert("good 2", continuous("12345678901234", follows), true);
assert("bad seq 1", continuous("12347678901234", follows), false);
assert("bad seq 2", continuous("10", follows), false);
// here a different predicate ensures all the elements are the same
var areAllSame = function (b, a) {
return a === undefined || a === b;
};
assert("same", continuous("aaaaa", areAllSame), true);
Note that the skipping could also be extracted out of the continuous function: in a language with better "functional" collection support, such as C#, this is exactly what I'd do first.

How to parse pure functions

Let's say you have the following function
var action = (function () {
var a = 42;
var b = 2;
function action(c) {
return a + 4 * b + c;
}
return action;
}());
// how would you parse action into it's serialized LISP / AST format?
var parsed = parse(action);
Is it possible to have a function that takes a reference to the function action and outputs say the LISP format (lambda (c) (plus (plus 42 (multiply 4 2)) c))
We're allowed to put some restrictions on what action can be.
the body should only be a single expression
it should be a pure function
any free variables are constants
The main question is given a function you can invoke with a range of inputs and it's source code can you discover the correct value to substitute the free variables with?
For the above example you know that a and b are constant and you could intellectually plot the output for a few values and see the pattern and then just know what the constants are.
Question:
How would you write a function that takes a function reference and it's source code and produces some form of AST for the function with any free variables substituted for their run-time values.
An example of an AST format would be the LISP equivalent of the code.
I basically want to serialize and deserialize the function and have it behave the same
It should be noted that the problem becomes trivial if you pass { a: a, b: b } to the analysis function. That would be cheating.
Use-case:
I want to generate a language agnostic form of a pure JavaScript function so I can effectively pass it to C++ without requiring the user of my library to use a DSL to create this function
Let's imagine you had a database driver
var cursor = db.table("my-table").map(function (row) {
return ["foo", row.foo]
})
You want to determine at run-time what the function is and convert it into an AST format so that you can use your efficient query builder to convert it into SQL or whatever query engine your database has.
This means you don't have to write:
var cursor = db.table("my-table").map(function (rowQueryObject) {
return db.createArray(db.StringConstant("foo"), rowQueryObject.getProperty("foo"))
})
Which is a function the DB library can execute with a query object and have you build the query object transformation without verbose methods.

Here is a full solution (using catalog of variables which is accessible by the parse function):
var CONSTANTS = {
a: 42,
b: 2,
c: 4
};
function test() {
return a + 4 * b + c;
}
function getReturnStatement(func) {
var funcStr = func.toString();
return (/return\s+(.*?);/g).exec(funcStr)[1];
}
function replaceVariables(expr) {
var current = '';
for (var i = 0; i < expr.length; i += 1) {
while (/[a-zA-Z_$]/.test(expr[i]) && i < expr.length) {
current += expr[i];
i += 1;
}
if (isNumber(CONSTANTS[current])) {
expr = expr.replace(current, CONSTANTS[current]);
}
current = '';
}
return expr;
}
function isNumber(arg) {
return !isNaN(parseInt(arg, 10));
}
function tokenize(expr) {
var tokens = [];
for (var i = 0; i < expr.length; i += 1) {
if (isWhitespace(expr[i])) {
continue;
} else if (isOperator(expr[i])) {
tokens.push({
type: 'operator',
value: expr[i]
});
} else if (isParentheses(expr[i])) {
tokens.push({
type: 'parant',
value: expr[i]
});
} else {
var num = '';
while (isNumber(expr[i]) && i < expr.length) {
num += expr[i];
i += 1;
}
i -= 1;
tokens.push({
type: 'number',
value: parseInt(num, 10)
});
}
}
return tokens;
}
function toPrefix(tokens) {
var operandStack = [],
operatorStack = [],
current,
top = function (stack) {
if (stack) {
return stack[stack.length - 1];
}
return undefined;
};
while (tokens.length) {
current = tokens.pop();
if (current.type === 'number') {
operandStack.push(current);
} else if (current.value === '(' ||
!operatorStack.length ||
(getPrecendence(current.value) >
getPrecendence(top(operatorStack).value))) {
operatorStack.push(current);
} else if (current.value === ')') {
while (top(operatorStack).value !== '(') {
var tempOperator = operatorStack.pop(),
right = operandStack.pop(),
left = operandStack.pop();
operandStack.push(tempOperator, left, right);
}
operatorStack.pop();
} else if (getPrecendence(current.value) <=
getPrecendence(top(operatorStack).value)) {
while (operatorStack.length &&
getPrecendence(current.value) <=
getPrecendence(top(operatorStack).value)) {
tempOperator = operatorStack.pop();
right = operandStack.pop();
left = operandStack.pop();
operandStack.push(tempOperator, left, right);
}
}
}
while (operatorStack.length) {
tempOperator = operatorStack.pop();
right = operandStack.pop();
left = operandStack.pop();
operandStack.push(tempOperator, left, right);
}
return operandStack;
}
function isWhitespace(arg) {
return (/^\s$/).test(arg);
}
function isOperator(arg) {
return (/^[*+\/-]$/).test(arg);
}
function isParentheses(arg) {
return (/^[)(]$/).test(arg);
}
function getPrecendence(operator) {
console.log(operator);
switch (operator) {
case '*':
return 4;
case '/':
return 4;
case '+':
return 2;
case '-':
return 2;
default:
return undefined;
}
}
function getLispString(tokens) {
var result = '';
tokens.forEach(function (e) {
if (e)
switch (e.type) {
case 'number':
result += e.value;
break;
case 'parant':
result += e.value;
break;
case 'operator':
result += getOperator(e.value);
break;
default:
break;
}
result += ' ';
});
return result;
}
function getOperator(operator) {
switch (operator) {
case '+':
return 'plus';
case '*':
return 'multiplicate';
case '-':
return 'minus';
case '\\':
return 'divide';
default:
return undefined;
}
}
var res = getReturnStatement(test);
console.log(res);
res = replaceVariables(res);
console.log(res);
var tokens = tokenize(res);
console.log(tokens);
var prefix = toPrefix(tokens);
console.log(prefix);
console.log(getLispString(prefix));
I just wrote it so there might be some problems in the style but I think that the idea is clear.
You can get the function body by using the .toString method. After that you can use regular expression to match the return statement
(/return\s+(.*?);/g).exec(funcStr)[1];
Note that here you must use semicolons for successful match! In the next step all variables are transformed to number values using the CONSTANTS object (I see that you have some parameters left so you may need little modifications here). After that the string is being tokenized, for easier parsing. In next step the infix expression is transformed into a prefix one. At the last step I build a string which will make the output looks like what you need (+ - plus, - - minus and so on).

Since I'm not sure you're able to get the method's body after having invoked it, here is an alternative solution:
var a = 42;
var b = 2;
function action(c) {
return a + 4 * b + c;
}
/**
* get the given func body
* after having replaced any available var from the given scope
* by its *real* value
*/
function getFunctionBody(func, scope) {
// get the method body
var body = func.toString().replace(/^.*?{\s*((.|[\r\n])*?)\s*}.*?$/igm, "$1");
var matches = body.match(/[a-z][a-z0-9]*/igm);
// for each potential var
for(var i=0; i<matches.length; i++) {
var potentialVar = matches[i];
var scopedValue = scope[potentialVar];
// if the given scope has the var defined
if(typeof scopedValue !== "undefined") {
// add "..." for strings
if(typeof scopedValue === "string") {
scopedValue = '"' + scopedValue + '"';
}
// replace the var by its scoped value
var regex = new RegExp("([^a-z0-9]+|^)" + potentialVar + "([^a-z0-9]+|$)", "igm");
var replacement = "$1" + scopedValue + "$2";
body = body.replace(regex, replacement);
}
}
return body;
}
// calling
var actionBody = getFunctionBody(action, this);
// log
alert(actionBody);
Prints:
return 42 + 4 * 2 + c;
DEMO
You would then have to implement your own function toLISP(body) or any function else you may need.
Note that it won't work for complex scoped variables such as var a = {foo: "bar"}.