/* Copyright 2006 by Sean Luke Licensed under the Academic Free License version 3.0 See the file "LICENSE" for more information */ package ec; import ec.util.Parameter; import java.io.*; import ec.util.*; /* * Individual.java * Created: Tue Aug 10 19:58:13 1999 */ /** * An Individual is an item in the EC population stew which is evaluated * and assigned a fitness which determines its likelihood of selection. * Individuals are created most commonly by the newIndividual(...) method * of the ec.Species class. * *

In general Individuals are immutable. That is, once they are created * their genetic material should not be modified. This protocol helps insure that they are * safe to read under multithreaded conditions. You can violate this protocol, * but try to do so when you know you have only have a single thread. * *

In addition to serialization for checkpointing, Individuals may read and write themselves to streams in three ways. * *

* *

Since individuals should be largely immutable, why is there a readIndividual method? * after all this method doesn't create a new individual -- it just erases the existing one. This is * largely historical; but the method is used underneath by the various newIndividual methods in Species, * which do create new individuals read from files. If you're trying to create a brand new individual * read from a file, look in Species. * *

Individuals are Comparable: if you sort Individuals, the FITTER individuals will appear EARLIER in a list or array. * * * @author Sean Luke * @version 1.0 */ public abstract class Individual implements Prototype, Comparable { /** A reasonable parameter base element for individuals*/ public static final String P_INDIVIDUAL = "individual"; /** A string appropriate to put in front of whether or not the individual has been printed. */ public static final String EVALUATED_PREAMBLE = "Evaluated: "; /** The fitness of the Individual. */ public Fitness fitness; /** The species of the Individual.*/ public Species species; public static int count = 0; /** Has the individual been evaluated and its fitness determined yet? */ public boolean evaluated; public int birthday = (count++); public Object clone() { try { Individual myobj = (Individual) (super.clone()); if (myobj.fitness != null) myobj.fitness = (Fitness)(fitness.clone()); return myobj; } catch (CloneNotSupportedException e) { throw new InternalError(); } // never happens } /** Returns the "size" of the individual. This is used for things like parsimony pressure. The default form of this method returns 0 -- if you care about parsimony pressure, you'll need to override the default to provide a more descriptive measure of size. */ public long size() { return 0; } /** Returns true if I am genetically "equal" to ind. This should mostly be interpreted as saying that we are of the same class and that we hold the same data. It should NOT be a pointer comparison. */ public abstract boolean equals(Object ind); /** Returns a hashcode for the individual, such that individuals which are equals(...) each other always return the same hash code. */ public abstract int hashCode(); /** This should be used to set up only those things which you share in common with all other individuals in your species; individual-specific items which make you you should be filled in by Species.newIndividual(...), and modified by breeders. @see Prototype#setup(EvolutionState,Parameter) */ /** Overridden here because hashCode() is not expected to return the pointer to the object. toString() normally uses hashCode() to print a unique identifier, and that's no longer the case. You're welcome to override this anyway you like to make the individual print out in a more lucid fashion. */ public String toString() { return "" + this.getClass().getName() + "@" + System.identityHashCode(this) + "{" + hashCode() + "}"; } /** Print to a string the genotype of the Individual in a fashion readable by humans, and not intended to be parsed in again. The fitness and evaluated flag should not be included. The default form simply calls toString(), but you'll probably want to override this to something else. */ public String genotypeToStringForHumans() { return toString(); } /** Print to a string the genotype of the Individual in a fashion intended to be parsed in again via parseGenotype(...). The fitness and evaluated flag should not be included. The default form simply calls toString(), which is almost certainly wrong, and you'll probably want to override this to something else. */ public String genotypeToString() { return toString(); } public void setup(final EvolutionState state, final Parameter base) { // does nothing by default. // So where is the species set? The Species does so after it // loads me but before it calls setup on me. } /** Should print the individual out in a pleasing way for humans, with a verbosity of Output.V_NO_GENERAL. */ public void printIndividualForHumans(final EvolutionState state, final int log) { state.output.println(EVALUATED_PREAMBLE + Code.encode(evaluated), log); fitness.printFitnessForHumans(state,log); state.output.println( genotypeToStringForHumans(), log ); } /** Should print the individual out in a pleasing way for humans, including its fitness, using state.output.println(...,verbosity,log) You can get fitness to print itself at the appropriate time by calling fitness.printFitnessForHumans(state,log,verbosity);

The default form of this method simply prints out whether or not the individual has been evaluated, its fitness, and then calls Individual.genotypeToStringForHumans(). Feel free to override this to produce more sophisticated behavior, though it is rare to need to -- instead you could just override genotypeToStringForHumans(). @deprecated Verbosity no longer used. */ public final void printIndividualForHumans(final EvolutionState state, final int log, final int verbosity) { printIndividualForHumans(state, log); } /** Should print the individual in a way that can be read by computer, including its fitness, with a verbosity of Output.V_NO_GENERAL. */ public void printIndividual(final EvolutionState state, final int log) { state.output.println(EVALUATED_PREAMBLE + Code.encode(evaluated), log); fitness.printFitness(state,log); state.output.println( genotypeToString(), log ); } /** Should print the individual in a way that can be read by computer, including its fitness, using state.output.println(...,verbosity,log) You can get fitness to print itself at the appropriate time by calling fitness.printFitness(state,log,verbosity);

The default form of this method simply prints out whether or not the individual has been evaluated, its fitness, and then calls Individual.genotypeToString(). Feel free to override this to produce more sophisticated behavior, though it is rare to need to -- instead you could just override genotypeToString(). @deprecated Verbosity no longer used. */ public final void printIndividual(final EvolutionState state, final int log, final int verbosity) { printIndividual( state, log, Output.V_NO_GENERAL); } /** Should print the individual in a way that can be read by computer, including its fitness. You can get fitness to print itself at the appropriate time by calling fitness.printFitness(state,log,writer); Usually you should try to use printIndividual(state,log,verbosity) instead -- use this method only if you can't print through the Output facility for some reason.

The default form of this method simply prints out whether or not the individual has been evaluated, its fitness, and then calls Individual.genotypeToString(). Feel free to override this to produce more sophisticated behavior, though it is rare to need to -- instead you could just override genotypeToString(). */ public void printIndividual(final EvolutionState state, final PrintWriter writer) { writer.println(EVALUATED_PREAMBLE + Code.encode(evaluated)); fitness.printFitness(state,writer); writer.println( genotypeToString() ); } /** Reads in the individual from a form printed by printIndividual(), erasing the previous information stored in this Individual. If you are trying to create an Individual from information read in from a stream or DataInput, see the various newIndividual() methods in Species. The default form of this method simply reads in evaluation information, then fitness information, and then calls parseGenotype() (which you should implement). The Species is not changed or attached, so you may need to do that elsewhere. Feel free to override this method to produce more sophisticated behavior, though it is rare to need to -- instead you could just override parseGenotype(). */ public void readIndividual(final EvolutionState state, final LineNumberReader reader) throws IOException { evaluated = Code.readBooleanWithPreamble(EVALUATED_PREAMBLE, state, reader); // Next, what's my fitness? fitness.readFitness(state,reader); // next, read me in parseGenotype(state, reader); } /** This method is used only by the default version of readIndividual(state,reader), and it is intended to be overridden to parse in that part of the individual that was outputted in the genotypeToString() method. The default version of this method exits the program with an "unimplemented" error. You'll want to override this method, or to override readIndividual(...) to not use this method. */ protected void parseGenotype(final EvolutionState state, final LineNumberReader reader) throws IOException { state.output.fatal("parseGenotype(EvolutionState, LineNumberReader) not implemented in " + this.getClass()); } /** Writes the binary form of an individual out to a DataOutput. This is not for serialization: the object should only write out the data relevant to the object sufficient to rebuild it from a DataInput. The Species will be reattached later, and you should not write it. The default version of this method writes the evaluated and fitness information, then calls writeGenotype() to write the genotype information. Feel free to override this method to produce more sophisticated behavior, though it is rare to need to -- instead you could just override writeGenotype(). */ public void writeIndividual(final EvolutionState state, final DataOutput dataOutput) throws IOException { dataOutput.writeBoolean(evaluated); fitness.writeFitness(state,dataOutput); writeGenotype(state,dataOutput); } /** Writes the genotypic information to a DataOutput. Largely called by writeIndividual(), and nothing else. The default simply throws an error. Various subclasses of Individual override this as appropriate. For example, if your custom individual's genotype consists of an array of integers, you might do this: *


        * dataOutput.writeInt(integers.length);
        * for(int x=0;x
*/ public void writeGenotype(final EvolutionState state, final DataOutput dataOutput) throws IOException { state.output.fatal("writeGenotype(EvolutionState, DataOutput) not implemented in " + this.getClass()); } /** Reads in the genotypic information from a DataInput, erasing the previous genotype of this Individual. Largely called by readIndividual(), and nothing else. If you are trying to create an Individual from information read in from a stream or DataInput, see the various newIndividual() methods in Species. The default simply throws an error. Various subclasses of Individual override this as appropriate. For example, if your custom individual's genotype consists of an array of integers, you might do this: *

        * integers = new int[dataInput.readInt()];
        * for(int x=0;x
*/ public void readGenotype(final EvolutionState state, final DataInput dataInput) throws IOException { state.output.fatal("readGenotype(EvolutionState, DataOutput) not implemented in " + this.getClass()); } /** Reads the binary form of an individual from a DataInput, erasing the previous information stored in this Individual. This is not for serialization: the object should only read in the data written out via printIndividual(state,dataInput). If you are trying to create an Individual from information read in from a stream or DataInput, see the various newIndividual() methods in Species. The default form of this method simply reads in evaluation information, then fitness information, and then calls readGenotype() (which you will need to override -- its default form simply throws an error). The Species is not changed or attached, so you may need to do that elsewhere. Feel free to override this method to produce more sophisticated behavior, though it is rare to need to -- instead you could just override readGenotype(). */ public void readIndividual(final EvolutionState state, final DataInput dataInput) throws IOException { evaluated = dataInput.readBoolean(); fitness.readFitness(state,dataInput); readGenotype(state,dataInput); } /** Returns the metric distance to another individual, if such a thing can be measured. Subclassess of Individual should implement this if it exists for their representation. The default implementation here, which isn't very helpful, returns 0 if the individuals are equal and infinity if they are not. */ public double distanceTo(Individual otherInd) { return (equals(otherInd) ? 0 : Double.POSITIVE_INFINITY); } /** Returns -1 if I am BETTER in some way than the other Individual, 1 if the other Individual is BETTER than me, and 0 if we are equivalent. The default implementation assumes BETTER means FITTER, by simply calling compareTo on the fitnesses themse.ves */ public int compareTo(Object o) { Individual other = (Individual) o; return fitness.compareTo(other.fitness); } }