Xpress-MP: What’s new in release 13?

New Interfaces

The complete Xpress-MP product suite
The growth of the Xpress-MP software suite to encompass Xpress-Mosel, Xpress-IVE, Java and COM has prompted us to revise the naming scheme for existing products. The names of the Xpress-MP software products and of the functions and constants used within the software have been revised, to present a consistent and more logical naming scheme.

All optimizer modules are now known collectively as Xpress-Optimizer, or Optimizer for short. The Xpress-Optimizer suite encompasses Optimizer C/C++, Optimizer Java, Optimizer COM, Optimizer VB, and Optimizer console.

The Xpress Builder Component Library, Xpress-BCL, is the name now given to the object oriented model builder which allows you to build up models within your application using function calls and your programming language (previously XBSL). The Xpress-BCL suite comprises BCL C/C++ and BCL Java.

New Java and COM APIs
The existing C/C++ and VB interface to the Optimizer is now supplemented by Java and COM interfaces, known as Optimizer Java and Optimizer COM. A Java interface for BCL, BCL Java, is also newly available to supplement the existing C/C++ interface. A COM interface will be coming soon. Details of the Java interfaces can be found in HTML JavaDoc documentation for the Optimizer and BCL. See \xpressmp\docs\optimizer\HTML\JavaDoc\index.html and \xpressmp\ docs\optimizer\HTML\JavaDoc\index.html in your Xpress-MP installation. Please take a look at the Java examples in the \xpressmp\examples\ optimizer and bcl directories.

New API for Re-entrant and Multi-threaded Applications
The Xpress-Optimizer and Xpress-BCL APIs have been revised and extended to support multi-threaded and re-entrant applications. The syntax of all functions has been revised, to accommodate a problem pointer which indicates to which problem the function is being applied. Within the Optimizer and BCL, all problems are independent: the problem data, solution status, control settings, even the callbacks are all independently set and calculated for each problem.

The Optimizer and BCL APIs are fully documented in the new Optimizer and BCL Reference Manuals (see below), and example applications are included on the Xpress-MP CD in the \xpressmp\ examples\ optimizer and bcl directories