Total99Batch

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Table of contents

• Running total99 in batch modality
  • General command line options
  • EvoRobotComponent actions

Running total99 in batch modality

The total99 executable can be run in two modalities: graphical and batch. When run without any command line argument, the graphical user interface (GUI) is shown, which allows you to select the configuration file, modify configuration parameters and interactively run experiments. The batch modality, instead, does not start the GUI. Instead it is possible to specify the configuration file and the action to execute via command line parameters. This is useful when running long experiments (as, for example, evolutionary robotics ones) because not having to update the GUI leads to an increase in performance. Moreover the Evoga genetic algorithm can run parallel evaluations of genotypes (that better exploit the resources in modern multicore/multiprocessor architectures) only when total99 is started in batch modality.

General command line options

The total99 executable recognise the following command line options:

• --batch Runs total99 in batch modality. Without this option the GUI is started.
• --file=<configFile> Loads that specified configuration file.
• --action=<action> Starts the specified action (as if it were selected from the Actions menu in the total99 GUI). For a list of actions provided by the EvoRobotComponent component, see the next section.
• -P<parameter>=<value> Overrides the value of the specified parameter. You must specify the full path of the parameter (e.g. -PComponent/GA/seed=10).

EvoRobotComponent actions

For evolutionary robotics simulations that make use of the EvoRobotComponent component, here is a list of supported actions:

• evolve Starts evolution. All replications are performed, one after the other. The seed is incremented by one each time a new replication starts.
• runTest Runs a test. The test to run is specified by the testToRun parameter. Refer to this page for more information about tests in EvoRobotComponent.