Program simplification

[Ian Clarke]

If anyone is interested, here is the code I wrote to simplify a GPCandidateProgram:

  https://gist.github.com/1017292

It knows how to simplify functions where both children are literals (replacing it with a literal result of the calculation), and also various boolean operations.

It can be used like this:

   Life.get().addHook(new AbstractHook() {

@Override

public List<CandidateProgram> generationHook(final List<CandidateProgram> pop) {

// ensure uniqueness

final Map<String, CandidateProgram> programs = Maps.newHashMap();

for (final CandidateProgram p : pop) {

simplify((GPCandidateProgram) p);

programs.put(p.toString(), p);

}

return Lists.newLinkedList(programs.values());

}

});

I don't know for a fact whether this simplification helps or hurts actual performance, but it just really bugged me to see programs that were unnecessarily complicated :-)

Consider the code to be in the public domain, you can do whatever you like with it.

Ian.

[Ian Clarke]

Ugh, Google Groups screwed up my formatting, sorry about that.

Ian.

[Tom Castle]

Ian,

Thanks for posting this.