Turtles-own or Breeds-own as variables in BehaviorSpace

Question

How can I use breeds-own or turtles-own variables in BehaviorSpace. When I tried it I got an error that "Global variable does not exist".

I cannot use these variables as global variables as each breed/turtle needs to have its own unique value of the variable during each run.

Answer 1

You cannot use breeds-own or turtles-own variables in BehaviorSpace.

You normally use breeds-own or turtles-own variable when you want a potentially unique value for each single individual. If that is what you want, trying to set that through BehaviorSpace is not going to work. (Though we may be able to suggest a workaround if you explain what you need in more detail.)

If you just want a unique value for the whole breed, then it's easy. You can create a different global variable (normally with a slider widget or numeric input box) for each breed. Let's say you have the following breeds:

breed [ frogs frog ]
breed [ mice mouse ]

Then you can have a slider named mice-var and another named frogs-var, and refer to those whenever you need to access that value in your code. For example:

to setup
  clear-all
  create-frogs 10 [
    set label frogs-var
  ]
  create-mice 10 [
    set label mice-var
  ]
end

In BehaviorSpace, you can then vary both of your global variables:

["frogs-var" 1 2 3]
["mice-var" "A" "B" "C"]

and then you'll have a run where all the frogs are labeled 1 and mice are labeled A, another run where it's 1 and B, then 1 and C, 2 and A and so on...