Genetic Programming and Databases

Genetic Programming (GP) is a means of automatically creating programs using a genetic algorithm (GA). Briefly a number of candidate programs are used starting points for a search through the space of possible programs looking for an acceptable program. New programs are created by random change to existing programs (known as mutation) or by combining elements of two existing programs (known as crossover). A mechanism to decide which programs are more promising is required. This is used to decide which programs are retained and which are used to produce new programs. In genetic algorithms this is known as the fitness function.