[Coin-discuss] CBC applied to maximization problems

[Michael Hennebry]

On Tue, 2 Dec 2008, Hart, William E wrote:

> Here's my scenario.  I have a wrapper script that passes a LP or MPS file to CBC, and then parses the output.  The results of this optimization process are then returned to the user.  The confusing thing is that a user sees minimization results when passed a maximization problem.  Logically, it's identical, but this will be surprising and confusing to non-technical users.

I think that the answer is to have the wrapper do the flipping.
The wrapper can print the warning.
The wrapper could also negate any output that needed negating.

> If CBC/CoinLpIO simply printed a warning that this problem was being reformulated, that would be enough for me to correctly parse the output.  (Working with the library directly, this wouldn't be an issue because I could check the max/min sense of the original problem...).

-- 
Michael   hennebry at web.cs.ndsu.NoDak.edu
"Pessimist: The glass is half empty.
Optimist:   The glass is half full.
Engineer:   The glass is twice as big as it needs to be."