XML-based genetic programming framework: design philosophy, implementation, and applications

We present the design philosophy, implementation, and various applications of an XML-based genetic programming (GP) framework (XGP). The key feature of XGP is the distinct representation of genetic programs as DOM parsing trees featuring corresponding flat XML text. XGP contributes to the achievements of: (i) fast prototyping of GP by using the standard built-in API of DOM parsers for manipulating the genetic programs, (ii) human readability and modifiability of the genetic representations, (iii) generic support for the representation of the grammar of a strongly typed GP using W3C-standardized XML schema; (iv) inherent inter-machine migratability of the text-based genetic representation (i.e., the XML text) in the distributed implementations of GP.