processNextXyz() returns the processed object.
3 \page quicktour Quick Tour to LEMON
5 Let us first answer the question <b>"What do I want to use LEMON for?"
7 LEMON is a C++ library, so you can use it if you want to write C++
8 programs. What kind of tasks does the library LEMON help to solve?
9 It helps to write programs that solve optimization problems that arise
10 frequently when <b>designing and testing certain networks</b>, for example
11 in telecommunication, computer networks, and other areas that I cannot
12 think of now. A very natural way of modelling these networks is by means
13 of a <b> graph</b> (we will always mean a directed graph by that and say
14 <b> undirected graph </b> otherwise).
15 So if you want to write a program that works with
16 graphs then you might find it useful to use our library LEMON. LEMON
17 defines various graph concepts depending on what you want to do with the
18 graph: a very good description can be found in the page
19 about \ref graphs "graphs".
21 You will also want to assign data to the edges or nodes of the graph, for
22 example a length or capacity function defined on the edges. You can do this in
23 LEMON using so called \b maps. You can define a map on the nodes or on the edges of the graph and the value of the map (the range of the function) can be practically almost of any type. Read more about maps \ref maps-page "here".
25 Some examples are the following (you will find links next to the code fragments that help to download full demo programs: save them on your computer and compile them according to the description in the page about \ref getsart How to start using LEMON):
28 <li> First we give two examples that show how to instantiate a graph. The
29 first one shows the methods that add nodes and edges, but one will
30 usually use the second way which reads a graph from a stream (file).
32 <li>The following code fragment shows how to fill a graph with data. It creates a complete graph on 4 nodes. The type Listgraph is one of the LEMON graph types: the typedefs in the beginning are for convenience and we will suppose them later as well.
34 typedef ListGraph Graph;
35 typedef Graph::NodeIt NodeIt;
39 for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++)
42 for (NodeIt i(g); i!=INVALID; ++i)
43 for (NodeIt j(g); j!=INVALID; ++j)
44 if (i != j) g.addEdge(i, j);
47 See the whole program in file \ref helloworld.cc.
49 If you want to read more on the LEMON graph structures and concepts, read the page about \ref graphs "graphs".
51 <li> The following code shows how to read a graph from a stream (e.g. a file). LEMON supports the DIMACS file format: it can read a graph instance from a file
52 in that format (find the documentation of the DIMACS file format on the web).
55 std::ifstream f("graph.dim");
58 One can also store network (graph+capacity on the edges) instances and other things in DIMACS format and use these in LEMON: to see the details read the documentation of the \ref dimacs.h "Dimacs file format reader".
61 <li> If you want to solve some transportation problems in a network then
62 you will want to find shortest paths between nodes of a graph. This is
63 usually solved using Dijkstra's algorithm. A utility
64 that solves this is the \ref lemon::Dijkstra "LEMON Dijkstra class".
65 The following code is a simple program using the \ref lemon::Dijkstra "LEMON
66 Dijkstra class" and it also shows how to define a map on the edges (the length
71 typedef ListGraph Graph;
72 typedef Graph::Node Node;
73 typedef Graph::Edge Edge;
74 typedef Graph::EdgeMap<int> LengthMap;
78 //An example from Ahuja's book
87 Edge s_v2=g.addEdge(s, v2);
88 Edge s_v3=g.addEdge(s, v3);
89 Edge v2_v4=g.addEdge(v2, v4);
90 Edge v2_v5=g.addEdge(v2, v5);
91 Edge v3_v5=g.addEdge(v3, v5);
92 Edge v4_t=g.addEdge(v4, t);
93 Edge v5_t=g.addEdge(v5, t);
105 std::cout << "The id of s is " << g.id(s)<< std::endl;
106 std::cout <<"The id of t is " << g.id(t)<<"."<<std::endl;
108 std::cout << "Dijkstra algorithm test..." << std::endl;
110 Dijkstra<Graph, LengthMap> dijkstra_test(g,len);
112 dijkstra_test.run(s);
115 std::cout << "The distance of node t from node s: " << dijkstra_test.dist(t)<<std::endl;
117 std::cout << "The shortest path from s to t goes through the following nodes" <<std::endl;
118 std::cout << " (the first one is t, the last one is s): "<<std::endl;
120 for (Node v=t;v != s; v=dijkstra_test.predNode(v)){
121 std::cout << g.id(v) << "<-";
123 std::cout << g.id(s) << std::endl;
126 See the whole program in \ref dijkstra_demo.cc.
128 The first part of the code is self-explanatory: we build the graph and set the
129 length values of the edges. Then we instantiate a member of the Dijkstra class
130 and run the Dijkstra algorithm from node \c s. After this we read some of the
132 You can do much more with the Dijkstra class, for example you can run it step
133 by step and gain full control of the execution. For a detailed description, see the documentation of the \ref lemon::Dijkstra "LEMON Dijkstra class".
136 <li> If you want to design a network and want to minimize the total length
137 of wires then you might be looking for a <b>minimum spanning tree</b> in
138 an undirected graph. This can be found using the Kruskal algorithm: the
139 class \ref lemon::Kruskal "LEMON Kruskal class" does this job for you.
140 The following code fragment shows an example:
142 Ide Zsuzska fog irni!
144 <li>Many problems in network optimization can be formalized by means of a
145 linear programming problem (LP problem, for short). In our library we decided
146 not to write an LP solver, since such packages are available in the commercial
147 world just as well as in the open source world, and it is also a difficult
148 task to compete these. Instead we decided to develop an interface that makes
149 it easier to use these solvers together with LEMON. So far we have an
150 interface for the commercial LP solver software \b CLPLEX (developed by ILOG)
151 and for the open source solver \b GLPK (a shorthand for Gnu Linear Programming
154 We will show two examples, the first one shows how simple it is to formalize
155 and solve an LP problem in LEMON, while the second one shows how LEMON
156 facilitates solving network optimization problems using LP solvers.
159 <li>The following code shows how to solve an LP problem using the LEMON lp
164 //A default solver is taken
166 typedef LpDefault::Row Row;
167 typedef LpDefault::Col Col;
170 //This will be a maximization
173 //We add coloumns (variables) to our problem
174 Col x1 = lp.addCol();
175 Col x2 = lp.addCol();
176 Col x3 = lp.addCol();
179 lp.addRow(x1+x2+x3 <=100);
180 lp.addRow(10*x1+4*x2+5*x3<=600);
181 lp.addRow(2*x1+2*x2+6*x3<=300);
182 //Nonnegativity of the variables
183 lp.colLowerBound(x1, 0);
184 lp.colLowerBound(x2, 0);
185 lp.colLowerBound(x3, 0);
187 lp.setObj(10*x1+6*x2+4*x3);
189 //Call the routine of the underlying LP solver
193 if (lp.primalStatus()==LpSolverBase::OPTIMAL){
194 printf("Z = %g; x1 = %g; x2 = %g; x3 = %g\n",
196 lp.primal(x1), lp.primal(x2), lp.primal(x3));
199 std::cout<<"Optimal solution not found!"<<std::endl;
205 See the whole code in \ref lp_demo.cc.
207 <li>The second example shows how easy it is to formalize a network
208 optimization problem as an LP problem using the LEMON LP interface.