The Mosel Language

The Mosel language can be thought of as both a modeling language and a programming language. Like other modeling languages it offers the required facilities to declare and manipulate problems, decision variables, constraints and various data types and structures like sets and arrays. On the other hand, it also provides a complete set of functionalities proper to programming languages: it is compiled and optimized, all usual control flow constructs are supported (selection, loops) and can be extended by means of modules. Among these extensions, optimizers can be loaded just like any other type of modules and the functionality they offer may be used in the same way as any Mosel procedures or functions. These properties make of Mosel a powerful modeling, programming and solving language with which it is possible to write complex solution algorithms.

The syntax has been designed to be easy to learn and maintain. As a consequence, the set of reserved words and syntax constructs has deliberately been kept small avoiding shortcuts and `tricks' often provided by modeling languages. These facilities are sometimes useful to reduce the size of a model source (not its readability) but also are likely to introduce inconsistencies and ambiguities in the language itself, making it harder to understand and maintain.