Key AMPL Features

More about AMPL and optimization

AMPL is a comprehensive and powerful algebraic modeling language for linear and nonlinear optimization problems, in discrete or continuous variables.

Developed at Bell Laboratories, AMPL lets you use common notation and familiar concepts to formulate optimization models and examine solutions, while the computer manages communication with an appropriate solver.

AMPL's flexibility and convenience render it ideal for rapid prototyping and model development, while its speed and control options make it an especially efficient choice for repeated production runs.

Key modeling language features

Broad support for sets and set operators. AMPL models can use sets of pairs, triples, and longer tuples; collections of sets indexed over sets; unordered, ordered, and circular sets of objects; and sets of numbers.
General and natural syntax for arithmetic, logical, and conditional expressions; familiar conventions for summations and other iterated operators.
Nonlinear programming features such as initial primal and dual values, user-defined functions, fast automatic differentiation, and automatic elimination of "defined" variables.
Convenient alternative notations including node and arc declarations for network problems, a special syntax for piecewise-linear functions, and columnwise specification of linear coefficients.

Key modeling environment features

Interactive command environment with batch processing options. Powerful display commands let you view any model component or expression, browsing on-screen or writing to a file, using automatic formatting or your own preferences.
New looping and if-then-else commands. Simple programs in the AMPL command language can now be written to solve sequences of related problems, for sensitivity analysis and for decomposition or other iterative schemes.
Separation of model and data. AMPL models remain concise even as sets and data tables grow. Models may incorporate many kinds of conditions for validity of the data.
Interfaces to popular and sophisticated solvers including CONOPT, CPLEX, LAMPS, LANCELOT, LOQO, LSGRG, MINOS, OSL, SNOPT, and XA.

The AMPL book

AMPL: A Modeling Language for Mathematical Programming by Robert Fourer, David M. Gay and Brian W. Kernighan, is published by Duxbury Press, an imprint of Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.

This comprehensive guide to the AMPL modeling language is suitable for users at any level. A tutorial on formulations in linear programming is followed by chapters covering network, nonlinear, and integer programming in AMPL -- all with extensive examples.

The book comes with a PC student edition of AMPL plus the MINOS and CPLEX solvers, limited to 300 variables and 300 constraints but full-featured in all other respects. It is thus ideal both for instructional use and for software evaluation.

See the AMPL book pages for a table of contents and text of the introduction and first chapter. Orders usually ship within 24 hours from our Optimization Bookstore.

Solvers that work with AMPL

AMPL's open interface makes possible a wide variety of solver connections. In most cases, the solver linking code is available at no additional charge. Solvers for which links have been constructed include:

For linear programming:
- Continuous: BPMPD, CPLEX, LAMPS, LOQO, lp_solve, MINOS, MOSEK, OSL, SOPT, XA, Xpress-MP
- Integer: CPLEX, LAMPS, lp_solve, MINTO, MOSEK, OSL, SOPT, XA, Xpress-MP
- Network: CPLEX, OSL
For nonlinear programming:
- Quadratic: CPLEX, MOSEK, OSL
- Convex: MOSEK, SOPT
- General continuous: CONOPT, DONLP2, FILTER, FSQP, IPOPT, KNITRO, LANCELOT, LOQO, MINOS, NPSOL, PENNON, SNOPT
- General integer: MINLP

See the AMPL solver page for contact information and web links regarding any of these products.

If you are involved in algorithm development, consider also hooking your own solver to AMPL.

The meanings of "AMPL"

To the extent that it was ever intended to mean anything, AMPL might have been intended as an acronym for

A Mathematical Programming Language.

On the Web you'll find a few other AMPLs for mathematical programming, such as

These are only more recently invented names for the same thing, however.

Outside of mathematical programming, you'll find a wider variety of AMPLs represented on the Web, including other computer languages,

A Multiprocessing Language, MasPar
ABB MasterPiece Language, ABB Industrial Systems Inc., Columbus, OH

and other entities of diverse kinds:

Advanced Materials & Processing Laboratory, University of Alberta, Edmonton
Advanced Manufacturing Processes Laboratory, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater
Advanced Microcircuit Parts Listing, NASA EEE Parts Program, Electronic Parts Engineering Office, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Adviser of Measurement and Planning
Affordable Monthly Payment Loan, Housing and Community Development Program, King County Community Services Division, Seattle
Alaskan Malamute Protection League
Amerikai Magyar Polgári Liga
Atomic and Molecular Physics Laboratories, Australian National University, Canberra
AMPL Software Pty. Ltd., Turramurra, NSW, Australia
L'Association Marocaine des Professionnels du Livre

To our knowledge, these have nothing to do with mathematical programming, optimization, or modeling languages of any kind, though they are nice places to visit.

Additional entries for these lists are welcome. You can send them to info@ampl.com.

Comments or questions?
Write to info@ampl.com or use our comment form.

Return to the AMPL home page.

LAST MODIFIED 25 FEBRUARY 2005 BY 4er.

Key AMPL Features

Modeling language

Modeling environment

The AMPL book

Solvers that work with AMPL

More about AMPL and optimization

Key modeling language features

Key modeling environment features

The AMPL book

Solvers that work with AMPL

More on AMPL and optimization . . .

The meanings of "AMPL"