Integration between LPSolve and Scilab

Wed Dec 29 23:52:04 CET 2010

Hi,

I would like to know if someone can help me to integrate LPSOLVE with Scilab. 
Seems hard to do it into Scilab.

I have Win7 home edition.

What I did:

First: 

I downloaded the file: lp_solve_5.5.2.0_IDE_Setup.exe  and ran it. I wanted 
to check if LPSOLVE is
a good software and easy to use it.

I tested a simple linear equation and it worked in LPSOLVE console ! Good signal 
!

Second:

I accessed the URL: http://lpsolve.sourceforge.net/5.5/ and read Quickstart. Wow 
... it was so confused !!!!

Then, I downloaded the file: lp_solve_5.5.2.0_scilab_exe_win32.zip  at URL: 
http://en.sourceforge.jp/projects/sfnet_lpsolve/downloads/lpsolve/5.5.2.0/lp_solve_5.5.2.0_scilab_exe_win32.zip/

and unzipped it. The directory lp_solve contains three sub-directories bin, 
macros and man, and some files, as follows:

12/29/2010 07:00 PM <DIR> .
12/29/2010 07:00 PM <DIR> ..
12/29/2010 07:00 PM <DIR> bin
12/29/2010 07:00 PM 3,796 builder.sce
12/29/2010 07:00 PM 730 changes
12/29/2010 07:00 PM 3,699 ex.sce
12/29/2010 07:00 PM 974 example1.sce
12/29/2010 07:00 PM 837 example2.sce
12/29/2010 07:00 PM 296 example3.sce
12/29/2010 07:00 PM 258 example4.sce
12/29/2010 07:00 PM 279 example5.sce
12/29/2010 07:00 PM 527 example6.sce
12/29/2010 07:00 PM 916 loader.sce
12/29/2010 07:00 PM 2,682 lpdemo.sce
12/29/2010 07:00 PM <DIR> macros
12/29/2010 07:00 PM <DIR> man
12/29/2010 07:19 PM 2,127 README.txt
12/29/2010 07:00 PM 123,079 Scilab.htm

I tried to read again the Quickstart at http://lpsolve.sourceforge.net/5.5/, but 
it really seems confused !

I stopped here !!

I copied it to this mail and wrote some comments (doubts), as follows:

Quickstart
Compile and build sclpsolve: ----------------------------
	1. Get the needed sources and libraries: Archive 
lp_solve_5.5.2.0_scilab_source.tar.gz contains the sources to build sclpsolve. 
Uncompress it to a directory, for example d:\lp_solve. Make sure that the folder 
structure is kept. It will create a directory structure 
lp_solve_5.5\extra\scilab\lpsolve in that folder. 

MY COMMENT: it is not the file that I downloaded, because my OS is Win7 home 
edition. Moreover,
when I unzipped it, it does not create that directory structure: 
lp_solve_5.5\extra\scilab\lpsolve
So, need I create it ???

     Archive lp_solve_5.5.2.0_dev.zip (Windows) or lp_solve_5.5.2.0_dev.tar.gz 
(Unix) contains needed libraries and include files to link the sources with. 
Uncompress it to the same folder as for the sources, appended with lp_solve_5.5. 
In this example that would be d:\lp_solve\lp_solve_5.5

MY COMMENT: I could not find the file lp_solve_5.5.2.0_dev.zip to download !!

 You have now all needed files in place. In your chosen directory (in this 
example d:\lp_solve) there will only be a directory lp_solve_5.5 In this 
directory, you have a directory extra and some files ending with .h and .lib The 
extra directory contains a scilab directory which contains a directory lpsolve 
with some files and directories. Under Windows, the lpsolve library 
lpsolve55.lib must be available in the lpsolve55 directory. However older 
version of scilab (<=3.0) require that this file is called lpsolve55.ilib In 
that case copy lpsolve55.lib to lpsolve55.ilib 

	1. 
	2. 
	3. Under Windows, the Microsoft Visual C/C++ compiler must be installed and the 
environment variables must be active so that when a command prompt is opened, 
the cl and nmake commands can be executed. This can be done also by opening a 
command prompt and execute the batch file VCVARS32.BAT (somewhere on your 
system) and then starting scilab from that same command prompt.

MY COMMENT: I am not sure if I have C/C++ compiler installed in my computer. 
Before I installed
Mingw and it installed some C/C++ files and created a directory called gcc which 
contains: 

12/20/2010 12:34 PM <DIR> .
12/20/2010 12:34 PM <DIR> ..
12/20/2010 12:33 PM <DIR> bin
12/20/2010 12:33 PM <DIR> i686-pc-mingw32
12/20/2010 12:34 PM <DIR> include
12/20/2010 12:34 PM <DIR> lib
12/20/2010 12:34 PM <DIR> libexec
12/20/2010 12:34 PM <DIR> manual
12/20/2010 12:34 PM <DIR> share

How can I certify that C/C++ compiler is installed ? In case it is installed, 
what are cl and nmake
commands ? How can I know if they work properly ? Moreover, what can I do with 
the file VCVARS32.BAT ?

	1. Start Scilab 
	1. 
	2. Check under Scilab that the current directory is the lpsolve directory. Use 
the Scilab pwd command to show the current directory. With the chdir command, 
you can change the current directory. This current directory must be 
lp_solve_5.5/extra/scilab/lpsolve example: 
chdir('d:/lp_solve/lp_solve_5.5/extra/scilab/lpsolve')

MY COMMENT: when I type pwd in Scilab, the path is:

-->pwd
 ans  =

 C:\Program Files (x86)\scilab-5.3.0  

	1. To compile and build sclpsolve, enter the following command in Scilab:    
-->exec builder.sce This should be done once to build the sclpsolve driver and 
to produce the file loader.sce. Load the sclpsolve driver in the Scilab memory 
space: -----------------------------------------------------
	1. Under Windows, make sure that the lpsolve55.dll file is somewhere in the 
path Under Unix/Linux, make sure that the liblpsolve55.so shared library is in 
/usr/lib or /lib so that Unix can find it. They are in archives 
lp_solve_5.5.2.0_dev.zip/lp_solve_5.5.2.0_dev.tar.gz and were installed in the 
lp_solve_5.5 directory of step 1 of the previous procedure. 

	2. It is required that the sclpsolve driver is first build. That must be done 
only once. So if you haven't taken the steps yet to build the sclpsolve driver, 
then do this first as described previously in 'Compile and build sclpsolve' 

	3. Start Scilab 
	4. Check under Scilab that the current directory is the lpsolve directory. Use 
the Scilab pwd command to show the current directory. With the chdir command, 
you can change the current directory. This current directory must be 
lp_solve_5.5/extra/scilab/lpsolve example: 
chdir('/lp_solve/lp_solve_5.5/extra/scilab/lpsolve') 

	5. Enter the following command in Scilab:    -->exec loader.sce

Therefore, I think the Quickstart is a little bit confused to understand !
Could be better if we might transfer lp_solve directory to Scilab and type 
atomsInstall([...])
like other modules !!!

If someone knows how to integrate LPSOLVE with Scilab, please give me some hints 
!!

Thank you in advance.

All best,
Reinaldo.