Author: Christian S. Perone

Python

Announce: python-gstringc 1.0

Last week I’ve done the ctype wrapper of Glib GString, but the performance issues when compared with cStringIO or StringIO was very poor, due to overhead of the ctypes calls. So I’ve written a new C extension for Python, the source-code (for linux) and install packages (for win32) are available at the project site. Here is some performance comparisons:

gstring

gstring_linux

Those tests were done to test string concatenation (append) of the three modules. You can find more about the tests and performance in the project site.

I hope you enjoy =)

by Christian S. Perone
Python

GLib GString wrapper for Python

I’ve done a little wrapper of GLib/GString functionality using Python ctypes. GString of GLib is an amazing and very stable work done by GLib team, the core used by GTK+ and many other libraries. The wrapper I’ve done works in Windows and Linux, but the performance results seems more interesting for Windows, however, the GString functionality is very interesting for any platform. The project is hosted here in Google project hosting.

Here is some examples of the wrapper:

>>> from GString import GString
>>> obj1 = GString("test")
>>> obj1

>>> print obj1
test
>>> obj1+obj1

>>> obj1+=obj1
>>> obj1

>>> obj1.truncate(5)

>>> obj1.insert(2, "xx")

>>> obj1.assign("test")

>>> obj1.erase(2,2)

>>> obj1.assign("12345")
>>> for i in xrange(len(obj1)):
...    print obj1[i]
...
1
2
3
4
5

I hope you enjoyed the wrapper, you can find performance comparisons in the project home site.

by Christian S. Perone
java, Python

Jinja2 in a Java JSP

This is a simple trick possible using Jython; to call jinja2 template engine under JSP we instantiate the PythonInterpreter class of Jython, set some parameters in the interpreter and then call jinja2 to render a template and write to the Java “out” object.

To install Jython, just download the last stable version Jython 2.5 and then install it as “Standalone” version; the installer will create a simple jython.jar file under the installation directory, copy this package to your Java web project under the \WEB-INF\lib or where you put your web application libraries.

Later, copy the jinja2 module to the \build\classes.

Create a simple template under the WebContent\templates\template.html with contents below:

This is just a Jinja2 template test !

Parameter "p" = {{ request.getParameter("p") }}

Getting session attribute: {{ session.getAttribute("session_attribute") }}

Iterating over Java array:

    
{% for user in users %}
	
  • {{ user }}
    • 
{% endfor %}

And now create a file called index.jsp in the root of the WebContent, with the contents:

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
    pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@page import="org.python.util.PythonInterpreter" %>




Jinja2 Template under JSP


<%
	PythonInterpreter py = new PythonInterpreter();

	String[] users = {"User Number One", "User Number Two"};
	session.setAttribute("session_attribute", "Testing Session");
	
	py.set("out",     out);
	py.set("request", request);
	py.set("session", session);
	py.set("users",   users);
	py.set("context_path", application.getRealPath("/") + "templates");
		
	py.exec("from jinja2 import Environment, FileSystemLoader");
	py.exec("env = Environment(loader=FileSystemLoader(context_path))");
	py.exec("template = env.get_template('template.html')");
	py.exec("out.write(template.render(locals()))");
%>

The structure will be like this:

structure

And the output will be something like this:

out

by Christian S. Perone
genetic programming, News, Pyevolve, Python, Time Waste

Approximating Pi number using Genetic Programming

pi

As many (or very few in the real life haha) people know, today is the Pi Approximation Day ! So it’s time to make a contribution to celebrate this funny day =)

My contribution is to use Python and Pyevolve to approximate Pi number using Genetic Programming approach. I’ve created the functions gp_add(+), gp_sub(-), gp_div(/), gp_mul(*) and gp_sqrt (square root) to use as non-terminals of the GP. The fitness function is very simple too, it simple returns the absolute difference between the Python math.pi and the evaluated individual. I’ve used also a population size of 1k individuals with max tree depth of 8 and the random ephemeral constants as random integers. The best approximation I’ve got while running the GP for about 8 minutes (40 generations) was 3.1416185511, best for 3 digits, you can improve it and let it run for more time to get better approximations.

Here is the formulae I’ve got with the GP (click to enlarge):

tree_pi

And here is the output of the script:

Best (0): 3.1577998365
        Error: 0.0162071829
Best (10): 3.1417973679
        Error: 0.0002047143
Best (20): 3.1417973679
        Error: 0.0002047143
Best (30): 3.1417973679
        Error: 0.0002047143
Best (40): 3.1416185511
        Error: 0.0000258975

- GenomeBase
        Score:                   0.000026
        Fitness:                 15751.020831

        Params:          {'max_depth': 8, 'method': 'ramped'}

        Slot [Evaluator] (Count: 1)
        Slot [Initializator] (Count: 1)
                Name: GTreeGPInitializator - Weight: 0.50
                Doc: This initializator accepts the follow parameters:

   *max_depth*
      The max depth of the tree

   *method*
      The method, accepts "grow" or "full"

   .. versionadded:: 0.6
      The *GTreeGPInitializator* function.

        Slot [Mutator] (Count: 1)
                Name: GTreeGPMutatorSubtree - Weight: 0.50
                Doc:  The mutator of GTreeGP, Subtree Mutator

   .. versionadded:: 0.6
      The *GTreeGPMutatorSubtree* function

        Slot [Crossover] (Count: 1)
                Name: GTreeGPCrossoverSinglePoint - Weight: 0.50

- GTree
        Height:                 8
        Nodes:                  21

GTreeNodeBase [Childs=1] - [gp_sqrt]
  GTreeNodeBase [Childs=2] - [gp_div]
    GTreeNodeBase [Childs=2] - [gp_add]
      GTreeNodeBase [Childs=0] - [26]
      GTreeNodeBase [Childs=2] - [gp_div]
        GTreeNodeBase [Childs=2] - [gp_mul]
          GTreeNodeBase [Childs=2] - [gp_add]
            GTreeNodeBase [Childs=2] - [gp_sub]
              GTreeNodeBase [Childs=0] - [34]
              GTreeNodeBase [Childs=2] - [gp_sub]
                GTreeNodeBase [Childs=0] - [44]
                GTreeNodeBase [Childs=0] - [1]
            GTreeNodeBase [Childs=2] - [gp_mul]
              GTreeNodeBase [Childs=0] - [49]
              GTreeNodeBase [Childs=0] - [43]
          GTreeNodeBase [Childs=1] - [gp_sqrt]
            GTreeNodeBase [Childs=0] - [18]
        GTreeNodeBase [Childs=0] - [16]
    GTreeNodeBase [Childs=2] - [gp_add]
      GTreeNodeBase [Childs=0] - [24]
      GTreeNodeBase [Childs=0] - [35]

- GTreeGP
        Expression: gp_sqrt(gp_div(gp_add(26,
gp_div(gp_mul(gp_add(gp_sub(34,
gp_sub(44, 1)), gp_mul(49, 43)), gp_sqrt(18)),
16)), gp_add(24, 35)))

And finally, here is the source code:

from __future__ import division
from pyevolve import *
import math

def gp_add(a, b): return a+b
def gp_sub(a, b): return a-b
def gp_div(a, b): return 1 if b==0 else a/b
def gp_mul(a, b): return a*b
def gp_sqrt(a):   return math.sqrt(abs(a))

def eval_func(chromosome):
   code_comp = chromosome.getCompiledCode()
   ret = eval(code_comp)
   return abs(math.pi - ret)

def step_callback(engine):
   gen = engine.getCurrentGeneration()
   if gen % 10 == 0:
      best = engine.bestIndividual()
      best_pi = eval(best.getCompiledCode())
      print "Best (%d): %.10f" % (gen, best_pi)
      print "\tError: %.10f" % (abs(math.pi - best_pi))

   return False

def main_run():
   genome = GTree.GTreeGP()

   genome.setParams(max_depth=8, method="ramped")
   genome.evaluator += eval_func

   ga = GSimpleGA.GSimpleGA(genome)
   ga.setParams(gp_terminals       = ['ephemeral:random.randint(1, 50)'],
                gp_function_prefix = "gp")

   ga.setMinimax(Consts.minimaxType["minimize"])
   ga.setGenerations(50000)
   ga.setCrossoverRate(1.0)
   ga.setMutationRate(0.09)
   ga.setPopulationSize(1000)
   ga.stepCallback.set(step_callback)

   ga.evolve()
   best = ga.bestIndividual()
   best.writeDotImage("tree_pi.png")

   print best

if __name__ == "__main__":
   main_run()

If you are interested why today is the Pi Approximation day, see some resources:

Little Cartoon

Some Background History

Some Pi Approximations

by Christian S. Perone
genetic programming, Pyevolve, Python

Genetic Programming and Flex layouts

To show how Genetic Programming of Pyevolve can be flexible, I’ve done a simple example using Adobe Flex and Pyevolve, the example is just to show how to evolve some kind of Flex layouts, I’ve not implemented the fitness function, this example will just create a random Flex layout using MXML. So, here is the Pyevolve code of the example:

import random
from pyevolve import *

def gp_hbox(x, y):
   return "%s %s" % (x,y)

def gp_vbox(x, y):
   return "%s %s" % (x,y)

def gp_panel(x, y):
   return "%s %s" % (x,y)

def eval_func(chromosome):
   code_comp = chromosome.getCompiledCode()

   for a in xrange(0, 5):
      for b in xrange(0, 5):
         evaluated     = eval(code_comp)
   return random.randint(1,100)

def main_run():
   genome = GTree.GTreeGP()
   genome.setParams(max_depth=5, method="ramped")
   genome.evaluator += eval_func

   ga = GSimpleGA.GSimpleGA(genome)

   button     = repr("<mx:Button label='Button'/>")
   label      = repr("<mx:Label text='Label'/>")
   text_input = repr("<mx:TextInput width='50'/>")

   ga.setParams(gp_terminals       = [button, label, text_input],
                gp_function_prefix = "gp")
   ga.setMinimax(Consts.minimaxType["minimize"])
   ga.evolve(freq_stats=5)
   print ga.bestIndividual()

if __name__ == "__main__":
   main_run()

As you can see, I’ve created the layout tags like HBox, VBox and Panel as functions of GP and the Button, Labe, TextInput as terminals of the GP, the result is very funny, it’s just a random layout, but you can use your imagination to create some nice and interesting fitness functions.

Here is the SWF generated from a random individual of the population:

I hope you enjoyed =)

by Christian S. Perone
News

FISL 10 – “Forum Internacional de Software Livre”

fisl10-tecposts

I’m very proud of my city today, because it is here (in Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil) that the FISL 2009 (10th) is happening ! The FISL is a conference which is attracting more than 7.000 attendees in the same time I’m writing this post. All these people (developers, companies, etc..) are here to talk and focus on “free software”. The conference is being presented with the presence of distinguished speakers like Richard Stallman (FSF), Peter Sunde (from Pirate Bay), Jon “Maddog” Hall (founder of Open Source Internation) and many other great speakers and Python people too =)  even the president of Brazil will be present tomorrow (friday) !!!

Unfortunately, almost the all sessions are in Portuguese, but this conference is a “must-go” for every developer ! See here some photos of the event.

You can find more information about FISL here:

The main site of the event

A Javalobby article about the first day

The real-time transmissions and some videos of conference

The session list of the event

by Christian S. Perone
News

Benford’s Law and the Iran’s election

This post is just to point some interesting analysis using Benford’s Law to check anomalies in the Iran’s election, the first is from Walter Melbane, an expert in electoral fraud, the article “Note on the presidential election in Iran, June 2009” is available here. The second paper is from Boudewijn F. Roukema from Torun Centre for Astronomy, the title is “Benford’s Law anomalies in the 2009 Iranian presidential election” and it’s available here.

I’ve done some other posts about the Benford’s Law too, like here, here and here.

by Christian S. Perone