PuLP: A Linear Programming Toolkit for Python

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PuLP: A Linear Programming Toolkit forPythonStuart Mitchell ,Stuart Mitchell Consulting,Michael O Sullivan,Iain DunningDepartment of Engineering Science, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New ZealandSeptember 5, 2011AbstractThis paper introduces the PuLP library, an open source package that allows math-ematical programs to be described in the Python computer Programming lan-guage. PuLP is a high-level modelling library that leverages the power of thePython language and allows the user to create programs using expressions thatare natural to the Python language, avoiding special syntax and keywords wher-ever IntroductionPuLP is a library for the Python scripting language that enables users to describemathematical programs. Python is a well-established and supported high levelprogramming language with an emphasis on rapid development, clarity of codeand syntax, and a simple object model. PuLP works entirely within the syntaxand natural idioms of the Python language by providing Python objects that rep-resent optimization problems and decision variables, and allowing constraints tobe expressed in a way that is very similar to the original mathematical expres-sion.

2.2 Interfacing with Solvers Many mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) solvers are available, both com-merical (e.g. CPLEX[1], Gurobi[2]) and open-source (e.g. CBC[6]). PuLP takes a modular approach to solvers by handling the conversion of Python-PuLP expres-sions into “raw” numbers (i.e. sparse matrix and vector representations of the

  Open, Programming, Linear programming, Linear, Course, Solver