[OS] Status info and OSService

[Paul A. Rubin]

Hi all,

I'm writing an application that hopefully will consist of a Java GUI/app 
that writes out a MILP model  as OSiL and OSoL files, passes them to 
OSSolverService (binary) to be run on a local copy of Cbc (binary), with 
the results going the other direction as an OSrL file.  (Of course, as 
someone said, the first casualty in every battle is the plan.)  I think 
this is similar to the setup at the INFORMS vendor session, except that 
I'm slipping in a Java program on the front end.  So I have a couple of 
questions ...

Is there any way for Cbc to communicate, through OSSolverService or 
otherwise, progress info (notably the optimality gap)?  The optimization 
chain will be running as a separate thread in the Java program (so as 
not to block the GUI), so it wouldn't be hard to add a thread that would 
monitor for incoming progress info, even if it were in the form of 
intermediate status files. 

Also, is there any way for the user to abort a solver run and get back 
the best incumbent so far?  I can kill the solver by killing its thread, 
but I'm thinking of a user who decides that he'd rather have an ok 
solution before dinner time than an optimal solution two days after the 
universe suffers heat death.

Looking around the CBC project page didn't tell me much (the focus is 
obviously on CBC as a library -- they admit in passing a binary exists, 
but that's about it).  I suspect the answers are "no" and "surely you 
jest" respectively, but it can't hurt to ask.

Thanks,
Paul