GeneticAlgorithms.jl
This is a lightweight framework that simplifies the process of creating genetic algorithms and running them in parallel.
Basic Usage
What's your problem???
Let's say you've got a simple equality a + 2b + 3c + 4d + 5e = 42
that you'd like come up with a solution for.
Create a Module
Start by creating a file and a module for your ga. Your module will be loaded into the framework and things inside it will be used to run your algroithm.
module equalityga
# implement the GA interface inside here
end
Define an Entity
Your entity should inherit from the abstract GeneticAlgorithms.Entity
. The framework will look for a create_entity
function and will use it to create an initial population.
type EqualityMonster <: Entity
abcde::Array
fitness
EqualityMonster() = new(Array(Int, 5), nothing)
EqualityMonster(abcde) = new(abcde, nothing)
end
function create_entity(num)
# for simplicity sake, let's limit the values for abcde to be integers in [-42, 42]
EqualityMonster(rand(Int, 5) % 43)
end
Note that EqualityMonster
has a field fitness
. By default this field will be used by the framework to store the entities calculated fitness, so that you have access to it elsewhere in your GA. If you'd like to change the behavior you can overload fitness!(entity::EqualityMonster, score)
.
Create a Fitness Function
The framework will expect a fitness
function. It should take in a single entity and return a fitness score.
function fitness(ent)
# we want the expression `a + 2b + 3c + 4d + 5e - 42`
# to be as close to 0 as possible
score = ent.abcde[1] +
2 * ent.abcde[2] +
3 * ent.abcde[3] +
4 * ent.abcde[4] +
5 * ent.abcde[5]
abs(score - 42)
end
Note that isless(l::Entity, r::Entity)
will return l.fitness < r.fitness
, but that in this case entities with scores closer to 0 are doing better. So we should define a specialized isless
.
function isless(lhs::EqualityMonster, rhs::EqualityMonster)
abs(lhs.fitness) > abs(rhs.fitness)
end
Group Entities
group_entities
operates on a population (an array of entities sorted by score) and will be run as a task and expected to emit groups of entities that will be passed into a crossover function. group_entitites
also provides a nice way to terminate the GA; if you want to stop, simply produce no groups.
function group_entities(pop)
if pop[1].fitness == 0
return
end
# simple naive groupings that pair the best entitiy with every other
for i in 1:length(pop)
produce([1, i])
end
end
Define Crossover
crossover
should take a group of parents and produce a new child entity. In our case we'll just grab properties from random parents.
function crossover(group)
child = EqualityMonster()
# grab each element from a random parent
num_parents = length(group)
for i in 1:length(group[1].abcde)
parent = (rand(Uint) % num_parents) + 1
child.abcde[i] = group[parent].abcde[i]
end
child
end
Define Mutation
mutate
operates on a single entity and is responsible for deciding whether or not to actually mutate.
function mutate(ent)
# let's go crazy and mutate 20% of the time
rand(Float64) < 0.8 && return
rand_element = rand(Uint) % 5 + 1
ent.abcde[rand_element] = rand(Int) % 43
end
Run your GA!
using GeneticAlgorithms
include(joinpath(@__DIR__, "equalityga.jl"))
model = runga(equalityga; initial_pop_size = 16)
population(model) # the the latest population when the GA exited