Galapagos/Excel Loop work around

David, Community,

I've been very impatient for a looping/recursion component to be added into the standard grasshopper toolset so I've created a work around. The main issue I've found with looping is that grasshopper doesn't easily store information from one solution to the next. Read/Writing to a txt file can store some information but setting it up to the same file results in a continuous loop that eventually crashes.

I found a vb script to actively write to an open excel spreadsheet as well as one to read from it. It requires an update in input before the writer will actually change the excel file. I set up Galapagos to control a dummy slider that shifts between two "true" numbers thus creating a controllable change in inputs. I've also set up a weave pattern to supply a 0 or 1 for Galapagos to test. I set 1 as the fitness test, so once Galapagos "achieves" the desired number of loops to excel the weave will give it the fitness number and stop the loop.

Unfortunately Galapagos has to finish its current generation before it will stop. The minimum population 5, so I can control a loop with an accuracy of five iterations. Any chance this could be lowered to 1 without messing up the rest of the component?

Does anyone have any ideas how this process could be improved or re written?

Thanks,

Nate Holland