User guides, reference manuals, and other publications

Topics covered in this section:

Under the following address you may find the complete online documentation for Xpress:

http://www.fico.com/fico-xpress-optimization/docs/latest

The whitepapers and all of the documents refered to in the following sections are included in PDF format in the Xpress distribution, for an overview direct your webbrowser to the subdirectory docs of your Xpress installation directory.

A useful online resource is the searchable database of Xpress examples that you can reach following this link:

http://examples.xpress.fico.com/example.pl

Modeling

The book `Applications of Optimization with Xpress-MP' (Dash Optimization, 2002) shows how to formulate and solve a large number of application problems with Xpress:

http://examples.xpress.fico.com/example.pl#mosel_app

Mosel

For a more in-depth introduction to working with Mosel, we suggest to read the 'Mosel User Guide'.

The 'Mosel Language Reference Manual' provides a complete documentation of the Mosel language, also including the features defined by the modules of the Mosel distribution (mmxprs, mmodbc, mmsvg, etc.).

The whitepaper 'Using ODBC and other database interfaces with Mosel' discusses examples of data exchange with spreadsheets and databases. The topic of I/O drivers is covered more generally by the whitepaper 'Generalized file handling in Mosel'

The Mosel Compiler and Mosel Run-time libraries are documented in the 'Mosel Libraries Reference Manual'.

To learn how to implement your own Mosel modules, please refer to the 'Mosel NI User Guide'.

The Mosel Native Interface is documented in the 'Mosel NI Reference Manual'.

Optimizer

All functions of the Optimizer library are documented in the 'Xpress Optimizer Reference Manual'. In this manual you also find exhaustive lists of all problem attributes and control parameters that may be used with Xpress Optimizer.

An introduction to fully automated tuning of the optimization algorithms for your problems is provided in the section 'Using the Tuner' of the 'Xpress Optimizer Reference Manual'.

Other solvers and solution methods

The FICO Xpress Optimization suite comprises some other products that have not been mentioned in this manual since they are typically reserved for more advanced uses. Each of these components comes with its own documentation. However, reading the introduction to Mosel in the first part of this manual is recommended to all first-time users who wish to employ these other products as Mosel modules.

Xpress Global comprises of algorithms for solving general non-linear and mixed-integer non-linear programs to global optimality. It leverages the technology in both Xpress Optimizer and NonLinear.
Xpress NonLinear comprises a set of solvers for solving general Non-linear Programming (NLP) problems to (local) optimality, including the Successive Linear Programming (SLP) solver Xpress SLP and also the NLP solver Knitro. Xpress NonLinear and Xpress Global are provided in the form of a Mosel module, mmxnlp. The individual solvers can also be used through library APIs or in console mode. For further detail see the 'Xpress NonLinear Reference Manual' and the 'Xpress Global Reference Manual'.

Constraint Programming (CP) is an approach to problem solving that has been particularly successful for dealing with nonlinear constraint relations over discrete variables, such as frequently occur in scheduling and planning applications. The Xpress Kalis Constraint Programming solver is provided in the form of library APIs (C++, Java, or Python) and as a Mosel module, kalis, which defines aggregate modeling objects specialized for scheduling and planning problems. For a description of this software see the 'Xpress Kalis Mosel Reference Manual', the 'Xpress Kalis Mosel User Guide', or the 'Xpress Kalis Libraries User Guide'.