Modern GAlib: A (modernized) C++ Genetic Algorithm Library

Copyright (c) 1994-1996 MIT, 1996-2005 Matthew Wall

GAlib is a C++ library of genetic algorithm objects. With GAlib you can add evolutionary algorithm optimization to almost any program using any data representation and standard or custom selection, crossover, mutation, scaling, and termination methods.

GAlib was originally developed by Matthew Wall.

Modernized GAlib from version 3.0 on is a fork of the original GAlib and modernized the original code using C++17 technology.

The library requires a C++ compiler conforming to C++17. It has been tested with

• Visual Studio 2019
• GCC 8.3, 9.4 (Ubuntu)
• LLVM/Clang 10.0.0 (Ubuntu)

Graphic examples (XWindows) are available, as are parallel, distributed implementations using PVM. There are about 30 examples that illustrate various ways to use GAlib on a variety of problems. In addition many unit tests are available.

WHERE TO GET IT

Modernized GAlib:

https://github.com/s-martin/galib

Original GAlib 2.4.7:

http://lancet.mit.edu/ga

ftp://lancet.mit.edu/pub/ga/

COMPILATION

CMake is used for compilation. There are three things to build: the library, the examples and the unit tests. Here is the short version of how to build and test everything:

Windows

Using vcpkg to install dependencies and chocolatey to install tools is recommended.

• Clone or download the repository

• Install dependencies: vcpkg install boost-test boost-program-options boost-predef

• Install coverage tools: choco install opencppcoverage

Visual Studio 2019 or later

• Open path in Visual Studio as CMake project.

Previous versions of Visual Studio

• md build && cd build

• cmake ../ -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<path to vcpkg>/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake

• Open created Visual Studio solution file in build directory

Linux (Ubuntu)

• sudo apt install libboost-test-dev libboost-program-options-dev libx11-dev libxt-dev libxaw7-dev

If you want to use code coverage:

• sudo apt install lcov gcovr

If you want to use Doxygen:

• sudo apt install doxygen mscgen dia graphviz

If you want to use PVM examples:

• sudo apt install pvm-dev

Configure and build:

• mkdir build && cd build

• cmake ../ (if you don't want to build examples append -DBUILD_EXAMPLES=OFF, if you want to build PVM append -DBUILD_PVM=ON)

• make

Run unit tests:

• make test

Run unit tests and create coverage:

• make GAlib_lcov

• make GAlib_gcov

Building shared libraries

To build shared libraries append -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS:BOOL=ON to the above cmake command.

See also https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.15/variable/BUILD_SHARED_LIBS.html in the CMake docs.

Common Errors

If that does not work, then here are the files you might have to modify:

• ga/gaconfig.h - this contains the macros that control library options

If you still have problems, look at Installation.html in the doc directory.

DOCUMENTATION

Doxygen API documentation is available at https://s-martin.github.io/galib/.

More general documentation is available at /doc.

Documentation of original GAlib (until 2.4.7)

List of bugs is at http://lancet.mit.edu/ga/Bugs.html

Original Mailing Lists

There are two GAlib mailing lists: [email protected] and [email protected] The first list is an unmoderated list intended as a forum for galib users to help each other. The second is only for announcements about GAlib updates. To subscribe, send email to [email protected] (or galib-announce-request) with the word 'subscribe' as the subject and nothing in the body of the email. To unsubscribe, send email with the word 'unsubscribe' as the subject.