GAGS Installation Guide

      GAGS (Genetic Algorithms from Granada, Spain) is a library
and companion programs written and designed to take the heat out
of designing a genetic algorithm. It features a class library for
genetic algorithm programming, but, from the user point of view,
is a genetic algorithm application generator. Just write the
function you want to optimize, and GAGS surrounds it with enough
code to have a genetic algorithm up and running, compiles it, and
runs it.

      GAGS is (for the time being) available at ftp://kal-
el.ugr.es/pub, under the name GAGS-0.91.tar.gz.

      GAGS needs several unix utilities whose use is widespread,
and you should make sure you have them in your path before
starting to install it.

      These utilities are
*_g++_ (GAGS is written in c++, so that there's no other way out),
or equivalent at&t c++ 3.0-compliant compiler, 
*_perl_ (used in the application generator; you will not be able
to use it if perl is not installed -- thanks, Larry Wall, for
it!) and 
*_gnuplot_ (for interactive graphical presentations). 

The cshell must also be installed in /bin/csh, since the
installation scripts have been written for it. The installation
procedure checks this, so that it will probably complain if there
is something missing.

      Installation works more or less like a GNU utility, that is,
configure, make, make install, and make demo. 

1. Run configure.

2. Edit Makefile, and change installation directories (LIBDIR,
INCDIR, BINDIR and MANDIR ) to the ones you will actually install
GAGS. Probably you will need to edit only PREFIX, if they all hang
from the same base dir. This path must be an _absolute_ path.

3. Run make

      This script compiles the library, and copies files to their
proper places. After running it, you are ready to run the
application generator, called GAGS.pl, which will be in the
$BINDIR directory. If you want to have it handy from then on,
include that directory into your path. 

4. Run make intall. You'll need to have write permission on the
directories in which the files will be installed

5. Test the library on the demo fitness files
unix_prompt% make demo
This program will ask you about the base directory in which you
have installed GAGSlib(the include, bin and lib directories
should hang from the same directory), and then run gags.pl, the
application generator.

There are 4 demo fitness function files in the ./demos directory, and
the corresponding training files. Check the user's manual, which is in
docs/gagsman.ps.
For instance, you can try it on one of these

minsqu2.ga; and one training file, nube (spanish for cloud); it
is a more or less gaussian cloud with 40 points centered around
0.02, -0.05, more or less. Both fitness functions try to reach
the center by minimizing the total distance to all the points,
thus, the chromosome contains only 2 parameters, corresponding
to the coordinates of the central point.

6. Print and have a look at the user's manual, _gagsman.ps_ or
_gagsman.txt_

7. Complain loudly if something does not work, or write a bug report
to jmerelo@kal-el.ugr.es