Genetic algorithms in Forth

TL;DR

This paper presents a genetic algorithm approach to automatically generate Forth bytecode implementations for complex algorithms based on test cases, demonstrating the method's effectiveness.

Contribution

It introduces a novel genetic algorithm technique for automatically synthesizing Forth programs from test specifications, handling complex algorithms.

Findings

Successfully generated implementations for sorting, GCD, LCM, factorial, prime divisors, and binomial coefficients.

Demonstrated the feasibility of using genetic algorithms for program synthesis in a simplified Forth environment.

Showed that complex algorithms can be automatically discovered with this approach.

Abstract

A method for automatically finding a program (bytecode) realizing the given algorithm is developed. The algorithm is specified as a set of tests (input\_data) $ \rightarrow $ (output\_data). Genetic methods made it possible to find the implementation of relatively complex algorithms: sorting, decimal digits, GCD, LCM, factorial, prime divisors, binomial coefficients, and others. The algorithms are implemented on a highly simplified version of Forth language.