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This file is auto-generated from config.yml using the generate_readme script. To make changes, please edit config.yml or the generation scripts here and here.
Welcome to Alps, (Abstract Library for Parallel Search). Alps is a framework for implementing parallel graph search algorithms. Its methodology generalizes many of the notions of an LP-based branch-and-bound algorithm, allowing the implementation of a wide range of algorithms with a simplified interface. Alps implements the search handling methods required for implementing large-scale, data-intensive parallel search algorithms, such as those used for solving discrete optimization problems. It is the base layer of the CHiPPS (COIN High Performance Parallel Search) library hierarchy that will includes a library for solving mixed integer linear programs (BLIS).
Alps is written in C++ and is released as open source under the Eclipse Public License 2.0.
It is distributed under the auspices of the COIN-OR Foundation
The Alps development site is https://github.com/coin-or/CHiPPS-ALPS.
Code:
Paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/0-387-23529-9_21
There is a Docker image that provides Alps, as well as other projects in the COIN-OR Optimization Suite here
For newer releases, binaries will be made available as assets attached to releases in Github here. Older binaries are archived as part of CHiPPS-BLIS here.
Due to license incompatibilities, pre-compiled binaries may lack some functionality. If binaries are not available for your platform for the latest version and you would like to request them to be built and posted, feel free to let us know in the discussion formum.
Source code can be obtained either by
- Downloading a snapshot of the source code for the latest release version of Alps from the releases page.
- Cloning this repository from Github or
- Using the coinbrew script to get the project and all dependencies (recommended, see below).
Below is a quick start guide for building on common platforms. More detailed build instructions are here.
Alps has a number of dependencies, which are detailed in
config.yml. Dependencies on other COIN-OR projects are
automatically downloaded when obtaining the source with coinbrew. For some
of the remaining third-party dependencies, automatic download scripts and
build wrappers are provided (and will also be automatically run for required
and recommended dependencies), while other libraries that are aeasy to obtain
must be installed using an appropriate package manager (or may come with your
OS by default).
The quick start assumes you are in a bash shell.
To download and build Alps from source, execute the following on the command line.
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coin-or/coinbrew/master/coinbrew
chmod u+x coinbrew
./coinbrew fetch Alps@master
./coinbrew build Alps
For more detailed instructions on coinbrew, see https://coin-or.github.io/coinbrew.
The coinbrew script will fetch the additional projects specified in the Dependencies section of config.yml.
- Download the source code, e.g., by cloning the git repo https://github.com/coin-or/CHiPPS-ALPS
- Download and install the source code for the dependencies listed in config.yml
- Build the code as follows (make sure to set PKG_CONFIG_PTH to install directory for dependencies).
./configure -C
make
make test
make install
For configuration and compilation of the parallel version, the user has
to specify the location of MPI with options --with-mpi-cflags,
--with-mpi-lflags, MPICC, and MPICXX.
./coinbrew build Alps --enable-static --disable-shared --with-mpi-cflags="$\(pkg-config --cflags mpi\)" --with-mpi-lflags="$\(pkg-config --libs mpi\)" MPICC=mpicc MPICXX=mpiCC
To build example codes (ABC and KNAP), configure and build as above. Switch
into the appropriate subdirectory in the source distribution and type make.
If you have Doxygen available, you can build a HTML documentation by typing
make doxygen-docs
in the build directory. If Alps was built via coinbrew, then the build
directory will be ./build/CHiPPS-ALPS/master by default. The doxygen documentation main file
is found at <build-dir>/doxydoc/html/index.html.
If you don't have doxygen installed locally, you can use also find the
documentation here.
- Code of Conduct
- COIN-OR Web Site
- COIN-OR general discussion forum
- Alps Discussion forum
- Report a bug
- Doxygen generated documentation
-
Configurations - Serial: Well tested. - LAMMPI: Well tested. - MPICH: Well tested.
-
Applications (See INSTALL) - Abc: Alps Branch and Cut (A simple generic MILP solver): Well tested. - Knap: Knapsack solver: Well tested.
Source Code:
Yan Xu (yax2@lehigh.edu) Aykut Bulut (aykutblt@gmail.com) Ted Ralphs (ted@lehigh.edu), Project Manager
Original Conceptual Design:
Yan Xu (yax2@lehigh.edu) Ted Ralphs (ted@lehigh.edu), Project Manager Laci Ladanyi (ladanyi@us.ibm.com) Matt Saltzman (mjs@clemson.edu)