The Knitro MPS file reader

Knitro implements a MPS file reader to import optimization problems specified in MPS and extended MPS formats. Knitro’s parser uses by default the free format MPS-style, but supports as well the fixed MPS format.

Note that MPS files should be encoded as ASCII files.

To ensure that Knitro parses correctly the MPS file, the names of rows and columns should not have any blank spaces.

CORRECT:
name_variable
UNCORRECT:
name variable

The maximal length of a variable’s name is set by default at 512 (the user can set the KN_MPS_LENGTH_NAME option to change this setting).

Free MPS format

Example

An example of a MPS file is given below:

NAME          TESTPROB
ROWS
 N  COST
 L  LIM1
 G  LIM2
 E  MYEQN
COLUMNS
    XONE      COST                 1   LIM1                 1
    XONE      LIM2                 1
    YTWO      COST                 4   LIM1                 1
    YTWO      MYEQN               -1
    ZTHREE    COST                 9   LIM2                 1
    ZTHREE    MYEQN                1
RHS
    RHS1      LIM1                 5   LIM2                10
    RHS1      MYEQN                7
BOUNDS
 UP BND1      XONE                 4
 LO BND1      YTWO                -1
 UP BND1      YTWO                 1
ENDATA

We discuss hereafter the different flags used in the (extended) free MPS format.

In the sequel, _ indicates a blank space.

NAME

Name of the problem. This section contains at most one line.

OBJSENSE (optional)

Sense of the objective function. This section contains at most one line with shape

SENSE

SENSE specifies the objective’s sense, with value being either

MAX
MIN

By default, the sense is set at MIN.

OBJNAME (optional)

Name of the objective. This section contains at most one line. By default, no name is set.

ROWS

In this section, each line specifies a row of the problem with shape

_S   rowname

The S character specifies the sense of the current row, with possible values being

E   equality constraint
G   greater than equal
L   less than equal
N   non specified

The objective line is specified by a N flag. If more than one line has a N flag, the objective is assumed to be the first N flag encountered.

COLUMNS

Each line in this section specifies a column of the problem with shape

_cname1  rname1  value1  [rname2]    [value2]

With

cname1    name of the variable corresponding to current row
rname1    name of a constraint where the row appears
value1    numerical values corresponding to row's coefficient in constraint
[rname2]  name of a second constraint where the row appears
[value2]  numerical values corresponding to row's coefficient in second constraint

Elements inside brackets [] are optional. Note that rname1 and rname2 should be present in the ROWS section.

Columns’ names should be consecutive. Otherwise, the MPS file could not be parsed correctly.

CORRECT:
_cname1
_cname1
_cname2

UNCORRECT:
_cname1
_cname2
_cname1

RHS (optional)

This section specifies the right-hand side of the different constraints. Each line is shaped

_name    cname1  value1  [cname2]  [value2]

with

name      name of the RHS vector
cname1    name of a constraint
value1    right-hand side of this constraint
[cname1]  name of a second constraint
[value1]  right-hand side of this second constraint

Elements inside brackets [] are optional. cname1 and cname2 should be present in the ROWS section.

If a constraint cname presents in the ROWS section does not appear in RHS, its right-hand side is set at 0 by default.

BOUNDS (optional)

This section specifies the upper and lower bounds for the variables defined in the COLUMNS section. By default, if no bound is specified, the lower bound LB is set equal to 0 and the upper bound UB is set equal to KN_INFINITY.

Each line has the form

_BO    vname    value

with vname the name of the variable, BO the nature of the bounds, defined as

FR      Free variable
FX      Fixed variable
LO      Lower bound
UP      Upper bound
MI      Minus infinity
PL      Plus infinity

If the same variable appears several times, additional values would be discarded.

Additional values exist to specify integer/binary variables: .. code-block:: none

FR Free variable BV Binary variable UI Upper-bounded integer variable LI Lower-bounded integer variable

RANGES (optional)

This section specifies constraints that lie inside an interval between two values.

A line inside the RANGES section has shape:

_T  row1    value1    [row2]    [value2]

with [row2] and [value2] optional values. T is the right-hand side specifier.

We have the following possibilities used in the RHS section.

Row type	Sign	RHS lower limit	RHS upper limit
G	+/-	rhs	rhs + range
L	+/-	rhs - range	rhs
E	+	rhs	rhs + range
E	-	rhs + range	rhs

For instance, the constraint

$15 <= x1 + 2x2 + x3 <= 30$

is encoded as

COLUMNS
 L  cons1
ROWS
 x1    cons1    1
 x2    cons1    2
 x3    cons1    1
RHS
 rhs   cons1    30
RANGES
 rhs   cons1    15

QUADOBJ / QMATRIX (optional)

A quadratic objective function is specified either by a QUADOBJ flag or a QMATRIX flag. For each quadratic term, the format is

col1    col2    values

with col1 the name of the first variable and col2 the name of the second variable, values being the coefficient of the term $col1*col2$ in the objective.

The quadratic matrix as an implicit factors of 0.5. For instance, the objective function

$2 x^2 + 32 x y + 9 y^2$

is encoded with QUADOBJ as

QUADOBJ
    x   x   4
    y   y   18
    x   y   32

and with QMATRIX as

QUADOBJ
    x   x   4
    y   y   18
    x   y   32
    y   x   32

The term y * x is assumed implicit in QUADOBJ, thus explaining why the term is not doubled.

The names x and y should be defined in the COLUMNS section.

QCMATRIX (optional)

Quadratic constraints are specified in QCMATRIX sections. Each quadratic constraint qc_index is encoded by a dedicated QCMATRIX flag:

QCMATRIX qc_index
    some text...

Inside a QCMATRIX flag, the format is similar as in the QMATRIX section, that is, the format of each line is

col1    col2    values

with col1 the name of the first variable, col2 the name of the second variable, values being the coefficient of the term $col1*col2$ in the constraint.

The quadratic matrix $Q$ defined must be symmetric.

The constraint

$2 x^2 + 32 x y + 9 y^2 + x <= 12$

is encoded as

ROWS
 L  qc1
COLUMNS
 x  qc1  1
 y  qc1  0
QCMATRIX qc1
 x  x   2
 y  y   9
 x  y   16
 y  x   16
RHS
 rhs1  qc1  12
ENDATA

For y to be defined correctly, it must appear in the COLUMNS section even if it does not appear linearly in the qc1 constraint.

On the contrary of the QMATRIX and QUADOBJ section, no scaling factor is applied to the definition of the constraint in the solver.

ENDATA (optional)

Specifies the end of the MPS file.

C example

In the callable library interface, a MPS file can be loaded through the KN_load_mps_file API function.

/*---- LOAD MPS FILE ----*/
if (KN_load_mps_file (kc, "file.mps") != 0)
    exit( -1 );