AIMMS 3.1 Release Notesmoretti/aimms/AIMMS_release.pdf · 2000. 8. 25. · AIMMS 3.1 ReleaseNotesforBuild3.1.567 VisitourInternetSiteforregularupdates Paragon Decision Technology

AIMMS 3.1Release Notes for Build 3.1.567

Visit our Internet Site for regular updateswww.aimms.com

Paragon Decision Technology

August 18, 2000

http://www.aimms.com/Download

Contents

Aimms Software License Agreement 3

1 System Requirements 51.1 Hardware and operating system requirements . . . . . . . . . 51.2 ODBC database connectivity issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61.3 Viewing help files and documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2 Installation Instructions 92.1 Installation instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.2 Aimms 3 licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3 Getting Support 133.1 Reporting a problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133.2 Known and reported issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

4 Release Notes 16Aimms 3.1 build 567, release date 2000-08-18 . . . . . . . . . . 16Aimms 3.1 build 468p, release date 2000-06-19 . . . . . . . . . 19Aimms 3.1 build 468, release date 2000-06-05 . . . . . . . . . . 19Aimms 3.1 build 369, release date 2000-04-17 . . . . . . . . . . 21Aimms 3.1 build 301, release date 2000-03-15 . . . . . . . . . . 24

Aimms Software License Agreement

Aimms softwarelicenseagreement

By using the Aimms software, you are agreeing to be bound by the terms ofthis agreement. If you do not agree to the terms of this agreement, promptlyreturn the Aimms software as well as all accompanying items for a full refund.You acknowledge that the Aimms software is proprietary to Paragon DecisionTechnology B.V. (pdt). pdt retains title and ownership of this software. Theownership of any solver components provided with the Aimms software re-mains with their respective suppliers.

Grant of license:permitted uses

The Aimms software and the documentation are copyrighted. You may notcopy the written materials accompanying this software. You may not decom-pile, disassemble, reverse engineer, copy, transfer, or otherwise use the Aimmssoftware except as stated in this agreement.

If the Aimms software is not protected by a hardware key, you have the rightto make one backup of the software and to use the software on only one com-puter at a time. If the Aimms software is protected by a hardware key, you havethe right to make multiple backups of the software and to use the software ononly one computer at a time. The license of an Academic version of the Aimmssoftware is further restricted to be used by faculty members and students of arecognized educational institution for teaching, research, and the constructionof demonstration applications.

Exclusive rights:Energy Trading

The Aimms software cannot be used as a component of energy trading soft-ware, because the exclusive marketing rights have been granted to the AlstomEsca Corporation, Bellevue, Washington, USA.

License transferYou may transfer the Aimms software license as well as the accompanyingwritten materials to a third party on a permanent basis, provided (a) you donot retain any copies of the software and (b) you retain a written statement inwhich the recipient of the software license agrees to the terms of this agree-ment. In addition, the recipient of the Aimms software license is not permittedto sell this license in turn, and should purchase Aimms licenses directly frompdt if reselling is required.

Aimms Software License Agreement 4

Limitedwarranty

This section expresses pdt’s sole liability and your exclusive remedy. TheAimms software is refunded when it, together with its documentation, is re-turned postage prepaid within 30 days following delivery. The media (not theAimms software) is warranted by pdt to the original purchaser against defectsin material and workmanship for a period of 90 days from the date of pur-chase. Defective media under warranty will be replaced when it is returnedpostage prepaid to pdt with a copy of the invoice. The replacement media iswarranted for 90 days from the date of replacement.

pdt disclaims all other warranties, either expressed or implied, including butnot limited to implied warranties of merchantability, or fitness for a particularpurpose, and arising from usage of trade or course of dealing or performance,with respect to the Aimms software, the accompanying written materials, andany accompanying hardware. In no event will pdt’s liability for any claim,whether in contract, tort, or any other theory of liability, exceed the license feepaid by the user. Nothing in this clause shall affect the liability of the licensorfor death or personal injury caused by his negligence.

Except as stated herein, in no event shall pdt or its suppliers be liable forany damages whatsoever, whether based on contract, tort, warranty or otherlegal or equitable grounds, including, without limitation, damages for loss ofbusiness profits, business interruption, loss of business information, or otherpecuniary loss, arising out of the use of or inability to use this Aimms software,even if pdt has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Maintenanceand upgrades

Maintenance releases and upgrade releases of Aimms are related to a particularlicense, and are only provided to customers who have purchased their licensesdirectly from pdt. A maintenance release contains bug fixes, but does notprovide new functionality or solver upgrades. An upgrade release providesbug fixes, new functionality and/or solver upgrades. Maintenance releases arefree of charge from the moment of purchase until the next upgrade release.The right to future upgrade releases and subsequent maintenance releases canbe obtained through a separate Maintenance and Upgrade Agreement.

Chapter 1

System Requirements

Systemrequirements

This chapter discusses the system requirements necessary to run the variouscomponents of your Aimms 3 system successfully. When a particular require-ment involves the installation of additional system software components, oran update thereof, the (optional) installation of such components will be partof the Aimms installation procedure.

1.1 Hardware and operating system requirements

Hardwarerequirements

The following list of minimum hardware requirements guarantees that yourAimms 3 system will be able to run small- to medium-sized AIMMS projects ina reasonably comfortable manner. Note, however, that this may also dependon the number of other applications that are running concurrently with Aimms.

� Pentium processor� SVGA display adapter and monitor� 32 Mb RAM� 40 Mb free disk space� A parallel port (for installing the Aimms dongle)

When you try to run an Aimms project for larger data sets on a PC with a smallamount of installed or available RAM, you may find that the increased memoryrequirements of running large models give rise to extensive disk swapping. Ingeneral, this will have a dramatic effect on the overall performance of bothAimms and the other applications running concurrently with Aimms. In sucha case you are advised to install sufficiently additional RAM to run all applica-tions comfortably again.

SupportedWindowsversions

Aimms 3 is designed to run under

� Windows 95/98,� Windows NT 4.0, or� Windows 2000.

Aimms 3 Unicode is designed to run under

� Windows NT 4.0, or

Chapter 1. System Requirements 6

� Windows 2000.

Running the Aimms 3 Unicode version under Windows NT version 3.51 andearlier as well as the 32-bit Windows version 95/98 is not supported. If youare using Windows NT 4.0, we advise to have Service Pack 3 or later installed.Earlier Service Packs are known to exhibit certain problems which may affectthe proper operation of Aimms 3. The most recent Windows NT 4.0 ServicePack is available from the Microsoft web site www.microsoft.com.

Windowscommoncontrols DLL

Aimms actively makes use of the features which are only present in an re-cent update of the common Windows controls DLL comctl32.dll. This updateis standardly available on a Windows machine only when Microsoft InternetExplorer version 4.0 or higher has been installed. The Aimms installation pro-cedure verifies whether the update of comctl32.dll is already installed, and willautomatically install the updated version if necessary.

1.2 ODBC database connectivity issues

Databaseconnectivity

Before you can start using the database connectivity features built into Aimms3, the following ODBC components need to be installed on your computer:

� the ODBC 3.0 core components, and� an ODBC 3.0 driver for each database from which you wish to retrievedata from within your modeling application.

This section discusses the compatibility issues between the various availableODBC components and Aimms 3.

Microsoft DataAccessComponents

The ODBC 3.0 core components, as well as the Microsoft ODBC 3.0 Jet drivers(which allow you to connect to, for instance, Microsoft Access databases), areavailable through the Microsoft Data Access Components. Please note thatearly versions of the Data Access Components (or of the OBDC 3.0 Jet drivers)may exhibit problems that prevent Aimms 3 from successfully connecting tocertain databases. If you are using the ODBC 3.0 connection layer, you aretherefore strongly advised to install the latest version of the Microsoft DataAccess Components.

Data AccessComponentsinstallation

The Aimms 3 CD-ROM contains the installation executable for Microsoft DataAccess Components version 2.5, and you can install it using the CD-browserwhich automatically starts up when you insert the Aimms 3 CD-ROM into yourcomputer. Alternatively, if you have downloaded the Aimms 3 installation ex-ecutable from the Aimms 3 web site www.aimms.com, you can download theinstallation executable for the latest Microsoft Data Access Components fromthe Microsoft web site www.microsoft.com.

http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/downloads

http://www.aimms.com

http://www.microsoft.com/data/download.htm


DCOM95required forWindows 95

When your computer is running Windows 95, you need to install the DCOMcomponent for Windows 95 before you can install the Microsoft Data AccessComponents. For more information on this issue, please refer to the downloadpage for the Microsoft Data Access Components at www.microsoft.com.

DCOM95installation

The Aimms 3 CD-ROM contains the installation executable for DCOM95 version1.3, and you can install it using the CD-browser which automatically starts upwhen you insert the Aimms 3 CD-ROM into your computer. Alternatively, ifyou have downloaded the Aimms 3 installation executable from the Aimms 3web site www.aimms.com, you can download the installation executable forDCOM95 from the Microsoft web site www.microsoft.com

Oracle ODBCdrivers

If your model needs to retrieve data from an Oracle database, the followinginformation may be relevant to you. The Oracle provided ODBC drivers forOracle version 7 only support ODBC version 2.0. If you are using Oracle version7, you should therefore use the Oracle ODBC 3.0 driver that is distributed withthe Microsoft Data Access Components. The Oracle provided ODBC drivers forOracle version 8 support OBDC version 3.0, and can therefore use the ODBC3.0 connection layer. Previous versions of the Oracle 8 ODBC drivers haveproven to exhibit problems which prohibit the proper operation of some of thedatabase connectivity features of Aimms 3. You can download the installationexecutables of the most recent version of the ODBC drivers for Oracle 8 fromthe Oracle web site www.oracle.com. Alternatively, you can use the Oracledriver that is distributed with the Microsoft Data Access Components.

1.3 Viewing help files and documentation

The help files and documentation of Aimms 3 make use of software compo-nents which are not standardly installed on the Windows 95/98 and WindowsNT 4.0 platforms. This section discusses the additional software componentsthat are required to view and print the available Aimms documentation.

Viewing helpfiles

The Aimms 3 help files are provided in the Winhelp 2000 format, an extensionof the standard Winhelp format. Viewing Winhelp 2000 help files requires thatthe DLLs

roboex32.dllinetwh32.dll

be installed in the Windows system directory of your computer. Without theseDLLs, the Aimms 3 help files can be viewed, but they lack the Winhelp 2000features. The Aimms installation procedure will automatically install the latestversions of these DLLs in the Windows system directory when necessary.

http://www.microsoft.com/data/download.htm


http://www.microsoft.com/com/resources/downloads.asp

http://technet.oracle.com/software/download.htm


Aimmsdocumentation

The Aimms 3 User’s Guide, the Aimms 3 Language Reference, the Aimms 3Function Reference, and the Aimms book on Optimization Modeling are avail-able online as Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files. In order to viewor print PDF documents, Adobe Acrobat Reader version 3.0 or higher needs tobe installed on your computer.

Acrobat Reader3.0 versus 4.0

If you have already installed Acrobat Reader version 3.0 on your computer,this will suffice to view and print the PDF files containing the Aimms docu-mentation when opened standalone. However, Acrobat Reader version 4.0 orhigher is required to open the Aimms documentation from within Aimms. Ac-robat Reader version 4.0 is also required to enable the context-sensitive helpfacilities on all Aimms language features from within the Model Explorer.

Acrobat Readerinstallation

The Aimms 3 CD-ROM contains the Acrobat Reader 4.0 setup executable, andyou can install it using the CD-browser which automatically starts up whenyou insert the Aimms 3 CD-ROM into your computer. Alternatively, if youhave downloaded the Aimms 3 installation executable from the Aimms 3 website www.aimms.com, you can download the Acrobat Reader 4.0 installationexecutable from the Adobe web site www.adobe.com.


http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html

Chapter 2

Installation Instructions

Installationinstructions

This chapter discusses all relevant issues related to the setup of Aimms 3 onyour computer. To install Aimms 3 on your computer, you can

� run the Aimms 3 setup program from the Aimms 3 CD-ROM, which youwill receive along with the Aimms 3 hardware dongle when you order anew Aimms 3 license, or

� when you already have a valid Aimms 3 license, download the setup pro-gram for the latest release of Aimms 3 from the download area of ourweb site, and run it from your hard disk.

The latter is the standard procedure for obtaining and installing Aimms 3 bugfixes.

2.1 Installation instructions

The Aimms 3CD-browser

When you install Aimms 3 from the Aimms 3 CD-ROM, a CD-browser will bestarted automatically when you insert the Aimms 3 CD-ROM into your com-puter. Using this CD-browser, you can

� start the Aimms 3 or Aimms 3 Unicode setup program,� install any other third-party software or system components available onthe Aimms 3 CD-ROM which are required to use certain components ofAimms 3 (as described in Chapter 1), and

� start the Aimms 3 License Server setup program (for network licensesonly).

ObtainingAimms 3 fromthe web

The download area of our web site www.aimms.com only provides the Aimms3 setup program of the latest Aimms 3 release. To access the download area ofour web site you need a user name and password, which will be provided to youby PDT when necessary. To obtain the latest versions of the setup programsof third-party software and system components required in conjunction withAimms 3, follow the links provided on our web site (or in Chapter 1 of theseRelease Notes).


Chapter 2. Installation Instructions 10

The Aimms 3setup program

The Aimms 3 setup program will guide you through the various steps that arenecessary to successfully install Aimms 3 on your computer. The Aimms 3setup program requires that you provide the following information:

� your Aimms 3 license type (Section 2.2)– Aimms Demo or student license– Aimms Single-user license– Aimms Network license

� your user and license information� the Aimms 3 installation directory� the specific selection of Aimms 3 components you wish to install (thesetup will select all components by default, which is recommended)

� the name of the Aimms 3 program folder

Except for the license type and license information, the Aimms 3 setup programwill make reasonable choices based on information already available on yourcomputer.

Administrativeprivilegesrequired

Certain parts of the setup of Aimms 3 may require administrative privileges un-der Windows NT 4.0. More specifically, you will need administrative privilegesfor

� the installation of the device drivers required to access the Aimms hard-ware dongle, and

� the installation of, or updates to, any system components which accessareas of the Windows registry in which you have no write access, or whichwrite to the Windows system directory, if write access to that directoryhas been restricted.

In general, these restrictions will not apply to you when this is not your firsttime installation of Aimms 3. In that case, the necessary device driver andsystem component installations will already have been performed during theinitial installation of Aimms 3.

2.2 Aimms 3 licensing

Aimms 3licensing

PDT offers three types of Aimms 3 licenses that require a different licenseactivation procedure:

� Demo and student licenses� Single-user commercial licenses� Network licenses (either commercial or academic)


Demo andstudent licensecomponents

Demo and student licenses are always date- and size-restricted. In addition,access to certain Aimms 3 functionality may be disabled, and interchangibil-ity with source files of other types of Aimms licenses may be restricted. Toactivate a demo or student license, only the installation of a license file is re-quired. Demo license files can be obtained from PDT, while student licensefiles can be distributed for free among students of academic institutions whohave purchased an academic network license.

Single-userlicensecomponents

To activate a single-user commercial Aimms 3 license, two licensing compo-nents must be installed on your computer:

� a hardware dongle, which must be connected to the parallel port of yourcomputer, to enforce the single-user character of the license, and

� a set of license files uniquely coupled to the dongle, to actually activateAimms 3 and its solvers.

Networklicenses

If you have ordered an Aimms 3 network license, no license files need to beinstalled locally on your machine. Instead, you must place a network configu-ration file aimmsnet.cfg into the Config directory of the Aimms 3 installation di-rectory which points to the Aimms 3 network license server on your local areanetwork. For more information about activating Aimms 3 network licenses,please refer to the documentation of the Aimms 3 network license server.

The Aimmsdongle

When you order a new Aimms 3 license, an Aimms 3 hardware dongle is sentto you along with your Aimms 3 CD-ROM. If you upgrade from Aimms 2.20,you can continue to use your existing Aimms 2.20 hardware dongle. Eitherdongle must be connected to the parallel port of your computer. The Aimms 3setup program will automatically install the required device drivers to accessthe dongle.

Licensenumbering

Every Aimms 3 license has a serial number according to the scheme

aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd

where each of the components aaa, bbb, ccc and ddd are three-digit numbersbetween 000 and 255. You find the serial number associated with your Aimms3 license on the hardware dongle, and also on your Aimms 3 CD-ROM case.

Existing Aimms2.20 licenses

If you have an existing Aimms 2.20 license number xxyy.zz, the correspondingserial number of your Aimms 3 license will be

010.0yy.0xx.0zz


License filesThe license files for an Aimms 3 license with serial number aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd are

� aaabbbcccddd.lic, the Aimms 3 license file,� aaabbbcccddd.slv, the solver configuration file, and� aaabbbcccddd.prm, the cplex license file.

A cplex license file will only be provided if you have ordered cplex. Thesolver configuration file contains a default solver configuration correspondingto the capabilities of your Aimms 3 license. From within Aimms 3, you canalways modify the PDT-provided solver configuration (see also Section 18.3 ofthe User’s Guide).

Files on Aimms3 CD-ROM

When you order a new Aimms 3 license, the necessary license files will beplaced in the Licenses directory on the Aimms 3 CD-ROM, and the Aimms 3setup program will automatically install these files in the Config directory ofthe Aimms 3 installation directory on your hard disk.

Manualinstallation

If your Aimms 3 license files are not installed automatically by the Aimms 3setup program, you can activate your Aimms 3 license manually by placing thelicense files corresponding to your Aimms 3 license into the Config directoryof the Aimms 3 installation directory.

Chapter 3

Getting Support

Getting supportThis chapter discusses the procedures that apply when you encounter prob-lems in Aimms 3. Please refer to the list of known and reported issues at theend of this chapter to verify whether a problem which you wish to report hasalready been reported before.

3.1 Reporting a problem

Problem fixingWhen you encounter a problem in Aimms 3, Paragon Decision Technology(PDT) will investigate the problem, and if applicable provide a fix for it. PDT al-ways provides this service if your Aimms version is the latest functional Aimmsrelease. In all other cases, you are only eligible to obtain a fixed release if yourAimms license is in maintenance. Any problem fix will always be performedon the latest functional Aimms release only, and may require that you upgradeyour Aimms system to that version.

Reporting aproblem

Whenever you encounter a problem, PDT needs the following information toprocess the problem.

� Computer information– Brand and model– Operating system and version number(including any installed Service Packs if Windows NT 4.0)

– CPU type and speed– Amount of installed RAM– ODBC version if the problem is database-related

� Aimms information– License number (Tools-License-Summary menu)– Aimms build number (Help-About Aimms menu)

� Problem details– A detailed description of the problem– The type of the problem

∗ Crash∗ Incorrect functionality∗ Cosmetic∗ Feature request

Chapter 3. Getting Support 14

– The severity of the problem∗ Crash∗ No work around available∗ Work around available∗ Cosmetic

� Reproducibility (if applicable)– A description of the steps required to reproduce the problem– A copy of your project files along with any other files used by yourproject, if such is necessary to reproduce the problem

Problemprocessing

You should e-mail your problem report containing the above information [email protected]. Upon receipt, PDT will investigate your reportand notify you of its status, as well as the actions that will be undertaken tofix the problem. When the problem has been fixed, you will be notified of thedate at which a fixed Aimms 3 version will be released.

Modelingsupport

Support requests other than bug reports will, in principle, only be dealt withat our regular consulting fee. This is especially true for when you request usto provide extensive modeling support. If you are new to Aimms 3, and needsome quick pointers to help you tackle a particular modeling problem, wemay decide to honor such requests at our discretion. When you send supportrequests to our e-mail account [email protected], please alwaysinclude your Aimms license number.

3.2 Known and reported issues

Known issuesThe following issues are currently in contradiction with the written Aimmsdocumentation, because they are not, or only partially, implemented in thepresent release of Aimms 3.

� The financial functions described in Section 6.1.8 of the Language Refer-ence are supported, but not yet described in the Function Reference.

� You cannot use the READ and WRITE statements to read from and write tocases (see Section 19.2 of the Language Reference). The READ and WRITEstatements do function in conjunction with ASCII files and DATABASE TA-BLES. To import and export case data from within your model, you canuse the data management functions described in Section 15.4.5 of theUser’s Guide. The use of these functions will only limit your capabilityto import or export subselections of the identifiers contained in a caseor dataset.

� Limited support for indexed unit parameters (see Section 23.7 of theLanguage Reference). The following functionality is not yet supported.

– Unit parameters do no support the DEFAULT attribute.– All external I/O to identifiers whose UNIT attribute contain a unitparameter are not converted to atomic units, but are stored as is.

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Chapter 3. Getting Support 15

This include values displayed and entered in the end-user interfaceand values read from and written to databases and files. As a re-sult, assignments within your model from or to identifiers with astatic UNIT attribute may result in wrongly scaled results.

– The values of unit parameters cannot be read from a database.All other functionality regarding the use of unit parameters is functional.

� Limited support for compound and indexed sets (see also Sections 3.2.3and 3.2.4 of the Language Reference). The following functionality is notyet supported.

– Indexed sets or slices thereof cannot be passed as arguments to in-ternal or external functions and procedures. As a work around, youcan assign the contents to a simple (sub)set and pass the contentsof that set as an argument.

– The mapping of indexed identifiers defined over compound setsused as actual argument in procedures and functions must exactlymatch the dimension of the specified formal arguments. For exam-ple, if c is an index into a compound set, it is not possible to map anactual argument P actual(c) onto a formal argument P formal(i,j),or vice versa.

– Data of identifiers declared over compound sets can not yet be readfrom a database. It is possible, however, to read the contents of acompound set itself from a database. As a work around you canread such data in a (temporary) identifier which is defined over theindices composing the compound set, and assign its values to theoriginal identifier within your model.

� The & sparsity modifier (see Sections 12.3 and 12.4 of the Language Ref-erence) is not yet implemented. As a work around you can explicitly addall domain restrictions to the statements and/or expressions in whichyou want to use the & sparsity modifier.

� The formal argument type HANDLE of external procedures and functionsis not yet implemented (see Section 11.2 of the Language Reference).

� Internal functions with VARIABLE arguments cannot be used in constraints(see Section 10.2.1 of the Language Reference).

Chapter 4

Release Notes

Release notesThis chapter contains the release notes of all public Aimms 3.1 releases. Foreach release, the following items are listed:

� the build number of the release,� the release date, and� a description of the changes and the issues resolved in this release.

Aimms 3.1versions

By default, the installation procedure will install the single-byte Aimms exe-cutable. This version is sufficient for most application developers. However,if you need to distribute a localized version of an Aimms application to, forinstance, Asian or Russian end-users, use of the common single-byte Aimmsversion may not be sufficient anymore, as many languages in these regionscannot be represented by means of single-byte characters. To support local-ization to such languages, a Unicode version of Aimms is available, in whichall strings are represented internally through double-byte characters. More de-tails on the Aimms Unicode version can be found in Section 19.2 of the User’sGuide.

Windows 2000All Aimms 3.1 releases can be installed and will run on the Windows 2000platform.

An overview of all known and reported issues which are still outstanding inthe current release is given in Section 3.2.

Aimms 3.1 build 567, release date 2000-08-18

Build 3.1.5672000-08-18

In this Aimms 3.1 bugfix release, the following issues have been fixed or im-proved. The issues are listed in no particular order.

� IMPORTANT: The shadow prices of variables and the marginal valuesof contraints are now unitless expressions, whereas these values wereconsidered to have the same unit as the corresponding variable or con-straint, respectively, in previous releases. This might cause Aimms togenerate compiler warnings about non-commensurate statements uponusage of this bugfix release.

Chapter 4. Release Notes 17

� IMPORTANT: In displaying graphical multiple-case objects, loading thecases displayed in the object could lead to a severe internal error. To fixthis problem, all affected cases must be loaded and re-saved with thisbugfix release before displaying the multiple-case object.

� IMPORTANT: Aimms will issue a compile time error when a defined iden-tifier is used as a procedural OUTPUT argument.

� The default of the option Listing Page Width has been changed from 76to 132.

� The execution option Warning Time Consuming FOR Threshold has beenintroduced to detect whether the evaluation of the condition and thestatements inside the FOR-loop are time consuming, especially when FORstatements loop over ordered indices. More information can be found inthe Help file, or in Section 8.3.4 of the Language Reference.

� The Parametric Curve Object has been extended with the possibility todeclare a numerical valued identifier in the Number of Steps attribute.

� The Enter-key will go to a new line in the multi-line Text Object when theproperty Leave object on Enter is turned off.

� The Bar Chart, (Parametric) Curve, and Gantt Chart objects have a newbutton called Default Colors on the Colors tab of their respective Proper-ties dialog boxes. More information about the use of default colors canbe found in the Help file.

� A new execution option Warning Numerical Range Violation has beenintroduced to detect assignments to identifiers outside their numericalrange. More information on this option can be found in the Help File.

� The incorrect integer parameter range {1,9} was automatically changedinto {1..9} by the Aimms compiler. It now results in a compiler error.

� The Timeslot Format wizard has been extended with the following for-mats:

– %c%y-%m-%d,– %c%y-%m-%d %H,– %c%y-%m-%d %H:%M,– %c%y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.

� Whenever the SQL query attribute is used in the Database Procedure, theattribute wizard will disappear (as it has no purpose for database proce-dures).

� The (previously hidden) matrix generation option Open Bound Tolerancehas been added to the Options dialog box. More information about thisoption can be found in the Help File.

� The second and third argument of CreateTimeTable function can nowcontain element valued expressions (including quoted elements). Moreinformation can be found in Section 24.4 of the Language Reference.

� An option search in the Project Options dialog box can, after a first hit,be continued by pressing the Enter key. In previous versions, the focuswas always set to the option found.

� Unit casts in assignments containing (indexed) unit parameters are nowproperly supported, and will employ to the proper scaling.


� The PageSetCursor function did not always function correctly when therequired page had to be opened before setting the cursor.

� The default order of the range wizard of the SET and ELEMENT PARAMETERis set to alphabetical.

� The FILE identifier type was emptied when an external procedure wascalled during a put session.

� The Print and Print Setup toolbar bitmaps were interchanged.� The Import functionality of the Menu Builder is extended with the op-tions Skip and Cancel (next to the existing Overwrite and Create New).

� Range checks were not executed during the evaluation of defined param-eters.

� A unit scaled read such as

READ (revenue) [$] FROM file "revenue.txt"

produced a compiler error.� The nodes in a Network Object with a negative node size, were not clearlydisplayed.

� When reading a relation from a file, such as in the statement

READ (i,j,’El-2’) in Relation FROM file "data.txt";

only sets corresponding to free indices in the READ statement will be ex-tended during that READ statement. In the example above, the sets corre-sponding to the indices i and jwill be extended, while the element ’El-2’will be interpreted as a filter in its corresponding domain set. In otherwords, no data will be written when ’El-2’ is not in its correspondingdomain set.

� Zooming in the Network Object did not work when the equal X and Yscale option was set

� The thousand separator, as well as the decimal separator key of the num-ber keyboard did not function correctly under specific regional settings.

� The Case Type property Hidden in Data Tree, when checked, resulted inproblems upon case selection.

� The (previously hidden) Aimms option Seed is now visible in the Optionsdialog box. More information about this option can be found in the Helpfile.

� The expression Mod(x1,x2) now return values in the range [0,Abs(x2)).� The following internal functions can be used to retrieve the values ofproject options:

– OptionGetCurrent,– OptionGetString,– OptionGetKeywords.

� The upgrade codes of VAR licenses produced an error upon usage.



Aimms 3.1 build 468p, release date 2000-06-19

Build 3.1.468p2000-06-19

In this Aimms 3.1 patch of Aimms 3.1.468, only the following issue has beenfixed.

� A fatal error appeared in the Menu Builder on the moment you tried tocopy a default menu, or item, to a customized menu or toolbar.


Build 3.1.4682000-06-05

In this Aimms 3.1 bugfix release, the following issues have been fixed or im-proved. The issues are itemized in no particular order.

� The Project Options can now be exported to, and imported from anASCII-file.

� Blocks of data in the Table object can now be selected using the arrowkeys in combination with the Shift key.

� The use of the wizard of the SUBSET OF attribute of a SET has been im-proved. Please note that the SUBSET OF attribute can now only be com-pleted using the wizard, in order to prevent some serious errors thatoccurred when modifying the attribute in a model with associated data.

� The right-mouse menu of the Menu Builder has been extended with Cut,Copy and Paste actions.

� The right-mouse menu of the SUBSET OF, the INDEX, and the PARAMETER at-tributes of a SET have been extended with Data, Attributes and Locationin tree actions.

� The previously hidden compilation option Warning Adapting Range ForLoop is now available for general use. More information about this optioncan be found in the Help File.

� A new case management option called Case Compression Level has beenadded to reduce the size of data cases. More information about thisoption can be found in the Help File.

� In relation to the Case Compression Level option, the case managementoption Case Compatibility has been introduced. Since the compressionoption is new, compatibility with older Aimms versions, if required, canbe obtained by setting this option to a non-default setting. More infor-mation about this option can be found in the Help File.

� A new compilation option called Warning Argument Defaults Mismatchhas been introduced to warn the user when a mismatch between the de-faults of the actual and formal argument of a procedure is encounteredduring compilation. More information about this option can be found inthe Help File.


� The execution option Warning Duplicate Mapping has been introducedto warn the user when a database column is mapped more to than oneAimms identifier in the same DATABASE TABLE. This option is introducedbecause Aimms will only read or write the first mapped identifier. Moreinformation about this option can be found in the Help File.

� The option Maximal Number of Warnings Reported has been added. Notethat the execution of a procedure will not be aborted when the maximumnumber of warnings has been reached, as is the case with the optionMaximal Number of Execution Errors Reported. More information aboutthis option can be found in the Help File.

� To support the fact that some database management systems (for exam-ple Oracle) convert all table and column names to lower or upper casewhen an external database is imported, but still use case sensitive stringcomparison when Aimms searches through the structure of a databasein such a database management system, the option Database TranslateCase is introduced. This option controls the way table and column namesare converted during communication between Aimms and the databasemanagement system. More information about this option can be foundin the Help File.

� A new database interface option called Database Capability Create Ta-ble will give the user the control to state whether the current user isallowed to create (temporary) tables in the database using the CREATE TA-BLE statement, or SQL statements as INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE and EXISTS.More information about this option can be found in the Help File.

� The right-mouse action Help on has been added for various intrinsicAimms functions and operators such as the numerical and logical itera-tive operators.

� A warning wil be generated whenever a CONSTRAINT name is used within aCONSTRAINT definition.

� Aimms no longer supports the creation of duplicate EXECUTION sections.If duplicate sections are present in existing models, a warning will begenerated.

� Whenever an identifier has a non-empty UNIT attribute, the associateddata page will display now its unit by default.

� TAB-characters were incorrectly displayed in the text object.� The range (0,inf) was not correctly accepted during compilation, butchanged to [0,inf) in previous releases.

� ELEMENT PARAMETERS defined over the predefined SET of AllColors were notalways updated upon start of the project. An explicit update action wasrequired to correctly update its values.

� The short-cut key Ctrl-A has been added to the Page-Edit Mode menu, toselect all graphical objects on a page.

� For consistency reasons, all import and export menu command are re-named to Import... and Export....

� In all modeling tools, a developer can use the Shift, Ctrl and arrow keysto select and/or deselect items.


� When the Source File attribute of a SECTION was used, the Compact Filesmenu command did not compact the source file associated with thatSECTION.

� The Aimms compiler inadvertently did not accept the logical expressionx<-1, because ‘<-’ was interpreted as a token used in Aimms 2.20 ACFfiles.

� The PageClose() function did not return a 0 upon failure.

New examplesThe following examples have been added in this Aimms release.

� Arcs and Nodes� Coloring� Create CSV File� Flow Shop� Linked Objects� Templates and Navigation



Build 3.1.3692000-04-17

In this first Aimms 3.1 bugfix release, the following issues have been fixed orimproved. The issues are itemized in no particular order.

� The Ctrl-Enter key, for adding a new line inside an attribute of an identi-fier, can now also be used in the View Window.

� Per solver run, you are now allowed to select a solver using the wheresolver :=-clause. More details can be found in Section 15.3 of the Lan-guage Reference.

� Strings up to 32 kB can now be read from a database. In the previousAimms release database string reads were limited to 1 kB strings.

� The new Aimms 3.1 project backup functionality did only create backupsof the project if an edit was made to the model. From now on, backupswill also be created when edits are solely made to the interface objects(pages, templates, etc.).

� Scrolling through the Composite Table object with the arrow keys willnow keep the focus of the cursor visible at all times. In the previousrelease, the cursor was lost when scrolling from left to right (or visaversa) when going outside the visible range.

� The new Aimms 3.1 data backup functionality did, in some cases, createdata cases which could not be restored because of incorrect data storageof defined ELEMENT PARAMETERS. The data storage of backup cases has beenimproved such that data can now be restored without problems.


� A Case Type of a specific group of identifiers can now easily be createdby selection of these identifiers in the Model Explorer and dragging theminto the Data Manager Setup. In the previous releases this only workedfor Data Categories. More information can be found in the Section Drag& Drop in AIMMS Trees of the on-line help.

� The Project User File-dialog has been extended with an Edit button suchthat user files can be edited within the Aimms environment either via theInternal Aimms Editor or the associatedWindows editor (e.g. for bitmaps).

� The User Bitmap for the toolbar can now also be defined by a project fileusing the wizard.

� Projects created in Aimms 3.0 that were protected with a developer pass-word could not be upgraded to Aimms 3.1 without removing the pass-word before upgrading. The upgrade of such Aimms 3.0 projects is nolonger a problem.

� When the developers password of a project was changed, but no editswere made to the model itself, the project would not re-open becauseof an incorrect password for the model file. The same problem ap-peared when a developers password was removed from a project with-out editing the model file. This release makes sure that passwords orsaved/removed in all necessary and associated files.

� In some occasions the automatic name extension, Ctrl-Space or Ctrl-Shift-Space, did not extend correctly.

� A database table with a property ReadOnly can no longer be emptied usingthe Empty-statement.

� Adding elements to a subset of a masterset that was defined as the unionof subsets was not possible in the previous release. Now elements thatare added to a subset, will automatically also be added to the master set.

� The callback and suffices functionality for solving mathematical pro-grams (Section 15.2) did not produce the correct intermediate results.

� The conversion message when running a project that was developed inthe Aimms Business version in a Economy version (or visa versa) has beenremoved.

� When the memory limit exceeded because of running extreme large dataruns on small memory PCs, Aimms would crash because there was nomemory left for reporting the error message. From now on, a messagewill warn the user that the memory limit is exceeded. Please understandthat any results after such a message may be incorrect.

� When a locally declared set with index was extended with a second index,the first index was automatically removed. This release enable you todeclare more than one index to a local set.

� The SWITCH-statement has been extended with the possiblity of handlingnegative integer values.

� More consistency has been brought in the data control statements EMPTY,CLEANUP, and CLEANDEPENDANTS. More details can be found in Section 18.3of the Language Reference.

� The PARAMETER data type (as well as the VARIABLE and CONSTRAINT data types


for consistency) have been extended with an additional property Double.The extension allows integer parameters to be able to hold special valuessuch as zero, -inf, and inf. By default, integer parameters are stored as4-byte integers, which cannot hold these special values.

� The default value of the fill argument of the function ElementRange wasdisplayed incorrectly. The displayed default value for this argument isset to 1 instead of 0.

� The CloseDataSource function incorrectly produced an error in a FOR-loop.This problem has been solved.

� Range checking during a read from a database has been improved. Spe-cially when ranges are described by valued identifiers instead of actualvalues.

� Sometimes projects were unnecessarily compiled when the option treewas opened or certain options were selected. Compilation of the projectis now only done when changes in the options require a recompilation.

� When writing unit-scaled identifiers to an ASCII data file, not all unitswere displayed.

� Initializing data via the Show Data-page or Initial Data-wizard did notallow you to extend a compound set.

� A template for setting up a User Bitmap for the toolbar has been addedin the Templates\Bitmaps subdirectory of the Aimms installation. Moreinformation can be found in the section Creating a Toolbar of the on-line help.

� The unit-scaled arguments of an external procedure were passed on intheir base unit. We have corrected this such that scaled arguments arenow passed in the desired unit as declared in the local declaration of theexternal procedure.

� When the structure of identifiers changes (e.g. from PARAMETER to VARI-ABLE), already existing data cases can become imcompatible because ofnon-existing suffices stored in the case. In the previous releases thisproblem did produce an error, upon which reading the case was stopped.From now on, the problem will result in a warning, and reading contin-ues. Please understand that the particular suffix data may be lost.

� The About Aimms dialog of the Aimms Unicode version does no longerproduce an crash.

� The electronic versions of the Aimms Language Reference and the AimmsUser’s Guide have been extended with a list of modifications. More de-tails on modifications in the documentation can be found after the Pref-ace in both manuals.




Build 3.1.3012000-03-15

This is the initial public release of Aimms 3.1. Since the release of Aimms 3.0in September of last year, a lot of new functionalities have been added to theAimms modeling system. Already existing functionality has been extended orimproved.

New AIMMSfunctionality

The following new functionalities have been added to Aimms 3.0 to result inAimms 3.1.

� Matrix manipulationThe matrix manipulation functions have become available. More detailsof these functions can be found in Chapter 17 of the Language Reference,or in the Function Reference.

� Time tableThe time table functionality has become available. The syntax of theprocedure CreateTimeTable has been changed to:

– CreateTimeTable(timetable, current-timeslot, current-period,period-length, length-dominates, inactive-slots,delimiter-slots)

The indexed identifier argument length-dominates has been added. Moredetails can be found in Chapter 24 of the Language Reference, or in theFunction Reference.

� Backup and restoreA backup and restore functionality has been added to Aimms that al-lows developers to create regular backups (with a .bak extension) of theproject files and data associated with your project. By default, suchbackup files will be stored in the Backup subdirectory of the project di-rectory. More details can be found in Section 2.4 of the User’s Guide.

� No user interfaceBy specifying the --hidden command line argument, you can run Aimmscompletely without user interface. This is useful when the Aimms ex-ecutable is started from within another (server) application, or whenAimms is started through the AimmsProjectOpen call of the Aimms API.More details can be found in Section 16.1 of the User’s Guide.

� Application modeThe following scalar function, to determine whether the application isstarted in developer mode (returns 1) or end-user mode (returns 0), hasbeen added.

– ProjectDeveloperModeMore details can be found in Section 15.4.6 of the User’s Guide.

� Aimms licensing informationThe developer can retrieve the Aimms license information from withinthe language with the following new functions.

– LicenseNumber(licensenumber)


– LicenseType(licensetype, license size)– LicenseStartDate(datestring)– LicenseExpirationDate(datestring)– LicenseMaintenanceExpirationDate(datestring)– AimmsrevisionString(revisionstring)

More details can be found in Section 15.4.7 of the User’s Guide.� VAR licensing informationThe developer can retrieve the expiration date of a VAR license fromwithin the language with the following new function.

– VARLicenseExpirationDate(filename,datestring)More details can be found in Section 15.4.7 of the User’s Guide.

� LocalizationWhen you are creating an end-user interface around your modeling ap-plication, you will most likely create the end-user interface in either yournative language or in a common language like English. Which languageyou choose most probably depends on the intended user group of yourapplication. In the case that you are requested to distribute your ap-plication to end-users who are not fluent in the language in which youoriginally developed the end-user interface, Aimms now offers a local-ization procedure which automatically separates all static texts used inthe end-user interface of your application. This allows you to provide arelatively smooth translation path of your application to the native lan-guage(s) of your end-users. More detailed information on localizationcan be found in Section 19.1 of the User’s Guide.

� UnicodeIf you have end-users on the Asianmarket who require a native version ofyour Aimms application, only making use of Aimms’ built-in localizationprocedure is not sufficient, as Asian languages require the use of double-byte characters to represent native strings. To support you in such cases,Aimms is now also available in a separate Unicode version. The AimmsUnicode version allows you to use (double-byte) Unicode characters instrings and set element descriptions in both your model and its end-user interface, and offers full support for communicating with files anddatabases containing either ASCII or Unicode data. To use the Unicodeversion of Aimms, a number of requirements must be met. The main re-striction is that the Aimms Unicode version will only run under WindowsNT 4.0 or Windows 2000. Neither Windows 95 nor Windows 98 offersupport to run Unicode applications. More information on the AimmsUnicode version can be found in Section 19.2 of the User’s Guide.

� OptionAimms has been extended with the option project documentation (in theProject-Help section of the Options dialog box. With this option you canspecify the name of a file that contains background information on yourproject. If a file is specified, the Project Documentation command in theHelp menu will be enabled. Consequently, when selecting this commandthe specified document will be opened. More information can be found


in the associated Aimms help-file.

ExtendedAIMMSfunctionality

The following functionalities have been extended in comparison to Aimms3.0.476.

� Network objectThe network object has been extended with a Background tab. This taballows you to specify the background picture on top of which the arcsand nodes are drawn. By specifying the proper values for the borders ofthe bitmap file, you can synchronize the position of the bitmap with thecoordinates of the network object. The Transport Model and DatabaseLink examples demonstrate the usage of a background picture in thenetwork object. More information can be found in the on-line help ofthis object.

� Scalar objectThe scalar object has been extended to a multiline edit field for tekst andsingle scalar valued objects. It allows you to display the scalar stringvalue or the contents of a file in a multiline line edit field. When editing,the Ctrl-Enter can be used to enter return characters in the string. Moreinformation can be found in the on-line help of this object.

� Table objectThe table object has been extended with the rowlabel width option on theTable tab. By default the layout of the table will be such that the all rowtitles are completely visible, but with this option you can limit the widththat is used for a row title. More information can be found in the on-linehelp of this object.

� Gantt chart objectWhen the duration of batches in a Gantt chart object is described byinteger valued identifiers, AIMMS will use the integer grid upon changeof the batch size by a user. More details can be found in the on-line helpof this object.

� Graphical objectThe possibilty of deleting element valued identifiers from within thegraphical data objects by hitting the Del-key or the space bar on yourkeyboard.

� ProcedureInternal procedure have been extended with the PROPERTY property. Withthis attribute a developer can specify whether or not the execution in-fluences the Undo-stack. More details can be found in Section 10.1 of theLanguage Reference.

� VAR licenseThe VAR-licensing functionality has been extended with the possibilityfor developers to create upgrade codes for distributed VAR-licenses oftheir end users. More information can be found in Section 17.1 of theUser’s Guide.


� Project user fileWhen you import a bitmap file (with the .bmp extension) into the projectfile, Aimms will now compress its contents before storing it into theproject file (and de-compress it before referencing its contents). Moredetails can be found in Section2.4.2 of the User’s Guide.

� Project user fileYou could already reference project user files from within the Aimmslanguage, but they can now also be used in the graphical objects of theend-user interface. Both within the Aimms language as well as in the end-user interface, you can reference such project user files as if they wereordinary files on disk. More details can be found in Section2.4.2 of theUser’s Guide.

� DialogThe available interaction dialogs for end users have been extended bythe function DialogGetDate. This function displays a dialog box in whichthe user can select a date from a calendar as is shown in Figure 4.1. More

Figure 4.1: Dialog box for selecting a date

details can be found in Section 15.4.4 of the User’s Guide.� DialogThe dialog function DialogGetValue will check the valued identifier rangeupon close.

� WizardThe Insert Current Data and definition/initial data wizard are extendedwith a number of decimals property when used with valued identifiers.

� WizardThe convention type has received a base unit wizard. With this wizardthe base unit of a convention can be redefined or removed more easily.

Improvedfunctionality

The following functionalities have been improved in comparison to Aimms3.0.476.

� Internal exception handlingThe internal exception handling of Aimms has been much improved. Inmost cases, an internal exception during compilation or execution of


your model will just give rise to a compilation or execution error, ratherthan crashing the system. In the eventual case of a system crash (e.g.from within the user interface), you will always get the opportunity tosave your work before Aimms will exit.Because Aimms now handles its internal exceptions, you may find that ex-ceptions in DLLs linked to your Aimms projects are not trapped anymore,when you are debugging such DLLs from within the Visual C debugger.To restore the original behavior again, execute the following procedure:

– start debugging Aimms using the Visual C debugger,– open the Debug-Exceptions menu, which will pop up the Excep-

tions dialog box illustrated in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2: The Exceptions dialog box

– modify the Action of all exceptions that you want to be trappedfrom Stop if not handled to Stop always.

� Multi-caseMulti-case support for displaying string parameters and identifier sliceshas been improved (See Section 13.5 of the User’s Guide).

� Compound setElement parameter with a compound set range can now be displayed in(composite) table objects.

� BoundsSome problems with the use of parameterized bounds in variables havebeen solved.

� Storage of model sectionsA number of problems with the usage of the SOURCE FILE attribute, andimporting and exporting of model sections have been resolved (see Sec-tion 3.2 of the User’s Guide).

� VAR licensing A number of problems with the LICENSE FILE attribute ofmodel sections have been resolved.

� UpdateSome definitions were not automatically update after reading data fromdatabases (see Section 7.3 of the Language Reference).


� Database functionThe database function CloseDataSource function did not always functioncorrectly in a FOR-loop.

� HistogramA number of problems with the histogram functions have been resolved(see Section 15.3 of the User’s Guide).

� Time functionThe TimeSlotCharacteristic ’quarter’ was not always computed correct-ly (see Section 24.4 of the Language Reference).

� ExecutionThe HALT statement will now display a dialog box instead of the error/warning window when activated (see Section 8.3.6 of the Language Ref-erence).

� Print pagePrint pages with a background color other than white where not printedcorrectly (see Section 11 of the User’s Guide).

� Bar-chart objectBar-chart object coloring did not respond correctly to specified color pa-rameters.

Changedfunctionality

The following functionalities have been changed in this Aimms release.

� Composite tableThe ’Automatic Sort’ property of a composite table will, by default, bechecked upon the creating a the table.

� Interface objectThe ’Show Defaults’ property of a various graphical objects (e.g. tables)will, by default, be checked except when the default value equals ’0’ orthe empty string.

New examplesThe following examples have been added in this Aimms release.

� CalendarThis Aimms example illustrates the basic use of calendars in Aimms. Itcontains the declarations of a number of calendars, each demonstratinga different timeslot format.

� HorizonThis Aimms example illustrates the basic behavior of horizons in Aimms.Through this example you can learn how to create a horizon which con-sists of three separate sub-intervals

– a past interval– a planning interval– a beyond interval

� E-mail and Sound SupportThis Aimms example illustrates two external DLLs (complete with source)that allow you to


– programmatically generate and send e-mail messages from withina model

– play sounds from within your model

Extendedexamples

The following examples have been extended in this Aimms release.

� Transport ModelThe network object in the Transport Model example has been extendedwith a zoomable bitmap of The Netherlands on its background. Further-more is an example of a multiline edit field displayed on the demo page.

� Database LinkThe network object in the Database Link example has been extended witha zoomable bitmap of The Netherlands on its background. Furthermoreis an example of a multiline edit field displayed on the demo page.


Documents

AIMMS 3.1 Release Notesmoretti/aimms/AIMMS_release.pdf · 2000. 8. 25. · AIMMS 3.1 ReleaseNotesforBuild3.1.567 VisitourInternetSiteforregularupdates Paragon Decision Technology