Command line

Command line options

The behavior of ugp3 is controlled by configuration files, not command line options. Command-line options should be used to tweak the execution, recover from an interrupted run, or temporary override specific values in the configuration files.

Information

These options make µGP display different information and then exit.

--version: Version and compilation information.

--license: Additional details about µGP license, namely the GNU General Public License [1].

--help: A laconic note suggesting to read this wiki.

Logging

These options controls the amount of information that µGP produces during the execution.

--debug: Show detailed information about every single operation performed. Yes, it means a lot of data. Indeed, this option is probably useless unless you are filling a bug report.

--verbose: Show more information than usual. Useful when the fitness function is computationally expensive.

--info: Show the standard amount of information. Indeed, this the default option. Also note that the nice progress bars are only used with this verbosity level.

--warning: Only show warnings and errors.

--error: Only show errors.

--silent: Nothing is shown. Never. This option is deprecated and useless. Nevertheless, it has been advocated by Dr. Massimiliano Schillaci, and therefore cannot be removed.

--log FILE VERBOSITY FORMAT: Add a log stream. Data are saved in FILE; the verbosity level can be debug, verbose, info, warning, or error; the FORMAT can be either brief or extended. See the discussion on the logging context in the main settings for details.

--statisticsPathName FIL: Save detailed statistics about the evolution in FILE in CSV format. Useful to debug the performance of the algorithm. If FILE already exists, µGP tries not to overwrite it. See format of evolution statistics.

Exploiting a previous run

These options are used to control how µGP use the results of previous runs, or recover an interrupted experiment.

--recoveryInput STATUS: Load the full toolkit status from the XML file STATUS and continue. I.e., fully recover an interrupted experiments. Everything is restored, including the internal status of the random number generator.

--recoveryInputPopulations FILE: Overrides the configuration file. Load a population from FILE and starts evolution.

--recoveryDiscardFitness: After recovery, invalidate all fitness values. This option is useful if the fitness evaluator has been changed.

--population FILE: Loads a population from FILE.

--merge destination source: Merges a population inside another one. Populations are numbered starting from zero up to one less than the total number of populations, in the same order as they have been initially created. For instance, to merge population number 3 and
number 0, leaving the resulting population in place 0: --merge 0 : This option may be used more than once. A single merge will occur for every use of the switch.

Last minute tweaking

--randomSeed: Overrides the option with the same name in Main Settings

--recoveryOutput: Overrides the option with the same name in Main Settings

--evaluatorPathName: Overrides the option with the same name for the first population. See Population's Settings.

--concurrentEvaluations: Overrides the option with the same name for the first population. See Population's Settings.

--evaluatorInputPathName: Overrides the option with the same name for the first population. See Population's Settings.

--evaluatorOutputPathName: Overrides the option with the same name for the first population. See Population's Settings.

--fitnessParameters: Overrides the option with the same name for the first population. See Population's Settings.

--removeTempFiles: Overrides the option with the same name for the first population. See Population's Settings.

--enableScanOperators: Enable "scan" operators by default. These are stable and work well but since they perform an almost exhaustive search in the neighbourhood of a solution, they produce many children and require numerous evaluations. You can enable those if your evaluator runs fast.

--enableExperimentalOperators: Enable experimental operators by default, that is, all the algorithms that sound great but never really worked. Could boost MicroGP's performance or erase your hard drive.