.NET support

[Laurent Perron]

Hello, 

Thanks to the invaluable help of Mark Farkas, we have .NET support in or-tools.

This has been tested with visual studio 10.

We have 4 new targets:

  make csharp

  make csharpexe

  make cleancsharp

  make test_csharp

There are examples in or-tools/csharp and a complete solution in or-tools/csharp/solutions/.

CP Library with arithmetic operators and writing custom decision builder is supported.

LP is supported, but I have not yet written the arithmetic layer as in the python libraries.

Knapsack and graph algorithms are supported.

Please tell me if anything goes wrong.

--Laurent

[Mark Farkas]

Hi!

I am glad I could help. If something goes wrong, please mail me and I try to figure it
out if possible.

Regards,
Mark

[Wouter]

Really nice :-)

However I have a question and I hope you forgive me for asking. But how do I build or-tools to a dll for .NET? I fetched the source and went into the folder and opened the makefile for C# in visual studio, however there are no options for building. Sorry I'm really unfamilier with C sharp and Visual Studios. 

[Laurent Perron]

Hi,
1) it works only on Windows.
2) You need to build dependencies (see getting started on
code.google.com/p/or-tools).
3) then you can type 'make csharp'. It will build 4 Google.OrTools.XXX.dll.

to build the examples, you can either type:
make csharpexamples
or
open the solution and build it.

I hope this helps.

--Laurent

From or-tools, you need to type tools

2012/1/5 Wouter <wouter...@gmail.com>:

--
--Laurent

[Wouter]

I tried but I failed. I'm really newb on building on windows. But anyway... what I did:

Went to: http://code.google.com/p/or-tools/wiki/AGettingStarted#Automatic_installation_under_windows 

First, create the or-tools svn copy where you want to work.

Check! "c:\or-tools\"

Then install python from http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.7/ 

Check (really don't know why I need python, since I want the .NET dll and the source is in C++, but what the hell :-P says it needs to be done)

If you wish to use glpk, please download glpk from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/glpk/glpk-4.47.tar.gz and put the archive in or-tools/dependencies/archives.  

Nah

Then you can download all dependencies and build them using: make third_party

Hmmm where do I need to use this command? Standard commandprompt from windows does not recognize this, visual studio either. Then I read...

All build rules use make (gnu make), even on windows. A make.exe binary is provided in the tools sub-directory. 

Ahhh so I need GNU make and a .exe is provided in "c:\or-tools\tools". Okay well I tried to start the make.exe located in "\tools" but when I click it it opens and closes again. So can't do much with that. However then I tried calling the .exe by the windows commandprompt like: 

C:\or-tools\tools>make C:\or-tools\makefiles\Makefile.third_party.win

make: Nothing to be done for `C:\or-tools\makefiles\Makefile.third_party.win'.

Hmmmm nothing to be done... can't be correct Well then I couldn't find the Makefile.local since I guess it gets created when running the "make third_party" command. 

I hope you can help me further :-)

[Laurent Perron]

OK,

let's build a 32 bit version of the libraries.
open a visual studio command prompt:
start menu -> Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 -> Visual Studio Tools ->
Visual studio command prompt
in the terminal, type:
c:
cd \or-tools
tools\make.exe third_party
tools\make.exe csharp

then you can open the solution and build the examples.
You should not need to install python, java, google-apputils, not
update the Makefile.local.

--Laurent

PS: to build a 64 bit version of the libraries, in a clean svn client,
open Visual Studio x64 Win64 Command Prompt and follow the same
procedure.

2012/1/6 Wouter <wouter...@gmail.com>:

--
--Laurent

[Laurent Perron]

 I have uploaded the current 32 and 64 bit versions of the dotnet assemblies.

Just unzip them at the root of or-tools and should should be ready to go (hopefully).

Thanks

Laurent Perron |

Operations Research Team Lead |

lpe...@google.com |

(33) 1 42 68 53 00

[Wouter]

Thank you very much. 

I also tried to compile it by myself but it didn't worked yet for me. First I had some trouble because I didn't had tortoise command line component installed. After that I tried to compile it but I get the error:

Done Building Project "c:\or-tools\dependencies\sources\coin-cbc\Cbc\MSVisualSt
udio\v10\Cbc.sln" (Build target(s)).

Build succeeded.
    0 Warning(s)
    0 Error(s)
Time Elapsed 00:00:02.28
copy dependencies\sources\coin-cbc\Cbc\MSVisualStudio\v10\Win32\Release\*.lib de
pendencies\install\lib\coin
Het systeem kan het opgegeven pad niet vinden. (translated: The system can't find the given path)
make.exe: *** [dependencies\install\bin\cbc.exe] Error 1

When I go to "dependencies\sources\coin-cbc\Cbc\MSVisualStudio\v10\" I see that the path "Win32" does not exist. Only "x64" exists but that is for 64 bit. I'm 32 bit :-)

 

[Wouter]

ps. your 32 bit DLL's, http://code.google.com/p/or-tools/downloads/list generates a "System.BadImageFormatException" error,  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/k7137bfe(v=vs.80).aspx. 

[Laurent Perron]

this means you are in 64 bit windows and the Cpu Type is AnyCPU.

Can you try forcing it to Win32 in the IDE.

It bit me before.

--Laurent

Laurent Perron |

Operations Research Team Lead |

lpe...@google.com |

(33) 1 42 68 53 00

[Wouter]

Update...

Seemed to be that the problem was not with the DLL but with the program I used. I namely wanted to create a wrapper for another language :-)

But all is fixed now. Thanks for all the help!

[Laurent Perron]

Hello,




I have just pushed an experimental support of .NET using mono.
I have tested it successfully on ubuntu 11.04 32 bit. It should work
on 64 bit. I may work with an older version of ubuntu, of with other
linux distributions.

After the update, run make test_csharp to launch all c# executables.

For the Mac OS X support, I need a 64 bit build of mono. You have to
build it by hand. I will try it later.

--Laurent

[hakank]

I can report that it now (SVN revision 1098) works on my Ubuntu 11.10,
64-bit.

Great work, Laurent and Mark!

/Hakan

[Mark Farkas]

Nice work :) Btw. Laurent: did you also incorporate routing interfaces?
I think it is missing from the default build.

[Laurent Perron]

Yes, actually the Google.OrTools.ConstraintSolver.dll contains the
routing interface.

--Laurent

2012/1/20 Mark Farkas <farka...@gmail.com>:

--
--Laurent

[Ben]

Hi,

I have just downloaded the .NET win32 DLL and tried to run some examples with LINQPAD but get the following error: 

The type initializer for 'Google.OrTools.ConstraintSolver.operations_researchPINVOKE' threw an exception.

Unable to load DLL 'c:\Users\lperron\Documents\or-tools\bin\Google.OrTools.ConstraintSolver.dll': The specified module could not be found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007007E)

I then started one of the projects in the "\or-tools.Win32\examples\csharp\solution\" folder and set the target platform to x86, and get the same exception as in LINQPAD.

Any ideas to make this work?

Cheers,

Ben

[Laurent Perron]

Hi,

I think I need to rebuild the dlls.

Can you build from source?

Thanks

[Ben Orca]

Yes should be able to build from source.

[Ben Orca]

I have tried building with VS command prompt 32 and 64, both failed.

The 64 build failed because it could not find
"dependencies\sources\gflags\autogen.sh"

[Laurent Perron]

Oh, you are not detecting that you are under windows.

Can you try to use make in or-tool\tools

like cd <or-tools>

tools\make.exe third_party

Thanks

[Ben Orca]

That is what I did. Went to the or-tools directory and then typed in:
> tools\make.exe third_party
There are a lot of things being inflated and created but the error at
the end is still the same.

Tried again with a fresh svn and same problem.

[Laurent Perron]

For all,

that was solved by making sure svn.exe is accessible from the command line tool.
I have highlighted this part in the getting started.

Thanks

2012/7/6 Ben Orca <operationsr...@gmail.com>:

--
--Laurent

[Ben Orca]

All working fine in LinqPad now. Thanks for your help Laurent.