Which paper should be cited for the genetic algorithm used in Matlab 2019a

Hello. I am using the ga function in Matlab 2019a.

I set the option "PopulationType" to be "bitstring", but I don't know what is the specific algorithm used in this case. Which paper should be cited for reference? Is it "Goldberg, David E., Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization & Machine Learning, Addison-Wesley, 1989."?

Thank you very much.

Answer 1

[the cyclist]

One source of references is the documentation for the function (which I'm guessing is where you found the reference you have).

Another is to "type ga.m" or "edit ga.m" (be careful not to make changes to the file), and look for references for particular methods.

[Appreciator]

Thank you. But there is no reference of paper given in the source code of ga.m. Matlab documentation is of course one of the references, but it is not enough, because the documentation does not give all the algorithm detail. I hope to find that it is in which paper the specific algorithm is adopted by Matlab for its bitstring-version ga function.

[the cyclist]

I understand. I only meant that those were two places (the documentation, and the code) where references often appear.

I don't own that toolbox, so I could not look at the code myself. As I expect you saw, the documentation page lists three references. Obviously the book is difficult/expensive to check (although sometimes you can get lucky in a google search or even amazon "look inside"). You might be able to access the papers via JSTOR or other tools.

You could also write to support and ask.

Finally, I'll mention that it often is satisfactory to a journal to just cite the software itself (with manufacturer and version number), rather than the algorithm, if that is your primary concern. I've done that on several occasions.