AMPL: A mathematical programming language.

Practical large-scale linear programming involves more than just the optimization of a linear objective function subject to constraint equations and inequalities. Before any algorithm can be applied to solve a linear program, considerable effort must be devoted to formulating the model and to determining the sparse matrix of coefficients. AMPL is a new language designed to make this process easier and less error-prone. It closely resembles the symbolic algebraic notation that modelers commonly employ to describe linear programs; yet it is regular and general enough to be processed by a computer system. We have implemented a translator that takes as input a symbolic AMPL model and the associated data, and produces output suitable for standard LP solvers.