Algorithm::Evolutionary Readme File

What is Algorithm::Evolutionary?

It's a library for doing evolutionary computation in Perl. Algorithm::Evolutionary was formerly called OPEAL (hence the name of this site), which is an acronym for Obvious Pearl Evolutionary Algorithm Library; it is about to become an official CPAN distribution (as soon as I figure out how to upload it to PAUSE), that is why I have definitely changed the name.

The desing principles of Algorithm::Evolutionary are:

• It should be easy to program any kind of evolutionary algorithm; all chromosome representations and operators are possible.
• An XML dialect called EvoSpec is used as a language for description of algorithms and for representation of the state of an algorithm. This could make Algorithm::Evolutionary interoperable with other EA libraries, such as EO or JEO.

Using Algorithm::Evolutionary

1. Get some libraries Algorithm::Evolutionary needs, from your closest CPAN mirror: XML::Simple, Math::Random, and B::Deparse. If you are connected to the Internet, and use CPAN to download this module, the installation procedure should do it for you.
2. Download the package from the http://sourceforge.net/projects/opeal/. The code in CVS is much more up-to-date than the releases; if you're fluent with CVS, you're better off using this version.
3. Decompress it: tar xvfz Algorithm-Evolutionary-0.x.tar.gz
4. Do the usual thing:

   perl Makefile.PL
   make
   make install 
   	  

   (you might need to go superuser to do this last step). And, if you feel like:

   make test
   	  

   License

   All Algorithm::Evolutionary modules and examples are released under the GPL. See the LICENSE file included in the distribution, or go to http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.txt.

   Extending Algorithm::Evolutionary

   Objects in Algorithm::Evolutionary fall in two classes: Individuals and Ops. You can create objects of any of these classes, by subclassing the Base class, and redefining apply in the case of Op. In the default case you won't have to override anything else, but if you have some particular data structure you might have to redefine asXML, for instance.

   Algorithm::Evolutionary docs

   All modules are documented, more or less, using POD, so you can just issue the usual perldoc IndiBase.pm, for instance, or else make doc from the base directory. The rest of the documents are here:

   • Individuals, evolvable data structures:
     • IndiBase
     • StringIndi
     • BinaryIndi
     • VectorIndi
     • VectorIndi
   • Operators, that change those data structures:
     • OpBase
     • Mutation
     • MutationOne
     • IncMutation
     • ChangeLengthMutation
     • GPMutation
     • GaussianMutation
     • Permutation
     • Crossover
     • VectorCrossover
     • ArithCrossover
     • CX
     • Inverover
   • Population-level operators, that act on population on individuals, selecting then and applying variation operators:
     • Easy algorithm
     • Full algorithm
     • TournamentSelect
     • RouletteWheel
     • GenerationalTerm
     • DeltaTerm
     • GeneralGeneration
     • SimAnn
     • LinearFreezer

   It's convenient to check out A explanation of the XML dialect used by Algorithm::Evolutionary, and how it's used throughout the module

   ---

   J. J. Merelo

   $Revision: 1.12 $
   $Date $