Talk:Forsyth-Edwards Notation
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Anyone knows if the letters for pieces (KQRBNP) are strictly defined by this standard? If, for example, I use FIDE approved letters, will it invalidate the FEN? --217.198.225.76 22:02, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Well, considering that standards are used to provide valid communication between disparate programs, using different letter than provided in the standard will mean that your FEN will not work with programs designed to read FEN formatted inputs.
From the standard itself -
8.2.3.2: Piece identification
SAN identifies each piece by a single upper case letter. The standard English values: pawn = "P", knight = "N", bishop = "B", rook = "R", queen = "Q", and king = "K".
The letter code for a pawn is not used for SAN moves in PGN export format movetext. However, some PGN import software disambiguation code may allow for the appearance of pawn letter codes. Also, pawn and other piece letter codes are needed for use in some tag pair and annotation constructs.
It is admittedly a bit chauvinistic to select English piece letters over those from other languages. There is a slight justification in that English is a de facto universal second language among most chessplayers and program users. It is probably the best that can be done for now. A later section of this document gives alternative piece letters, but these should be used only for local presentation software and not for archival storage or for dynamic interchange among programs.
