R help - Apr 2008 - representing binary data for Genetic Algorithm in R

Hello all,

I am trying to implement a simple Genetic Algorithm. I am doing this
in R since I want access to the statistical functions (eg lm) it
provides.

I'm not new to programming, or GAs, but I am totally new to R (the
package and the language), and I am hoping someone could help with
these questions:

1. I am going to use a binary representation, it seems that vectors of
   Factors would be what I should use? I would specify values of
   TRUE/FALSE instead? Or is there a better choice for manipulating
   binary strings? Does this seem like a legitimate way to create a
   random one: sample(0:1, vec_size, replace=T)

2. Am I correct in assuming that R is interpreted (and hence is going to
   be noticeably slower than compiled languages)?

3. Is there some sort of debugging facility? 

4. Does anyone know how to do an effective search for R in google (or
   other search engines). The fact that this is a single letters seems
   to have most applications ignore this input. This might help me in
   finding answers to some other basic questions I have (such as is
   there an equivalent function to "printf" in R? "cat" and
"print"
   are not quite working right for me -- but I need to dig deeper into
   the documentation)

I am not sure if this belongs into the help or development group, so
I'm giving this a try. If this is the wrong group to post in, please
let me know and I'll repost.

There will probably be more elementary questions (I am reading the
various manuals too .. but if anyone has some other favorite sites
they want to recommend please do so)

Thanks,
Esmail

ps: I there a USENET group dedicated to R?

pps: I am also exploring ways of calling R functions from Java, if
     anyone has any comments regarding that please share.
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Dear Esmail,

you really have to have a look at some introduction to R (e.g. 
http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-intro.pdf), but see the
"Manual"
section in R website (http://www.r-project.org/). That would answer many 
of your questions.
>Hello all,
>
>I am trying to implement a simple Genetic Algorithm. I am doing this
>in R since I want access to the statistical functions (eg lm) it
>provides.
>
>I'm not new to programming, or GAs, but I am totally new to R (the
>package and the language), and I am hoping someone could help with
>these questions:
>
>1. I am going to use a binary representation, it seems that vectors of
>   Factors would be what I should use? I would specify values of
>   TRUE/FALSE instead? Or is there a better choice for manipulating
>   binary strings? Does this seem like a legitimate way to create a
>   random one: sample(0:1, vec_size, replace=T)
>  
>
Factors are nice to manipulate binary strings (they use integers as 
internal representation).
>2. Am I correct in assuming that R is interpreted (and hence is going to
>   be noticeably slower than compiled languages)?
>
>  
>
Yep. But you can have R call C and Fortran code as well.
>3. Is there some sort of debugging facility?
>
?debug
> 
>4. Does anyone know how to do an effective search for R in google (or
>   other search engines). The fact that this is a single letters seems
>   to have most applications ignore this input. This might help me in
>   finding answers to some other basic questions I have (such as is
>   there an equivalent function to "printf" in R? "cat"
and "print"
>   are not quite working right for me -- but I need to dig deeper into
>   the documentation)
>  
>
Functions: ?, help.search, apropos, RSiteSearch. See also 
http://www.rseek.org/.
>I am not sure if this belongs into the help or development group, so
>I'm giving this a try. If this is the wrong group to post in, please
>let me know and I'll repost.
>  
>
Instructions and posting guide are there:
http://www.r-project.org/mail.html
>There will probably be more elementary questions (I am reading the
>various manuals too .. but if anyone has some other favorite sites
>they want to recommend please do so)
>
>Thanks,
>Esmail
>
>ps: I there a USENET group dedicated to R?
>
>pps: I am also exploring ways of calling R functions from Java, if
>     anyone has any comments regarding that please share.
>  
>
See the rJava package.

Regards,

Thibaut.

-- 
######################################
Thibaut JOMBART
CNRS UMR 5558 - Laboratoire de Biom?trie et Biologie Evolutive
Universite Lyon 1
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69622 Villeurbanne Cedex
T?l. : 04.72.43.29.35
Fax : 04.72.43.13.88
jombart at biomserv.univ-lyon1.fr
http://lbbe.univ-lyon1.fr/-Jombart-Thibaut-.html?lang=en
http://adegenet.r-forge.r-project.org/