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Introduction

CHiPPS is the COIN-OR High-Performance Parallel Search Framework, a framework for implementing parallel algorithms based on tree search. The current CHiPPS architecture consists of three layers. The Abstract Library for Parallel Search (ALPS) is the base layer of a hierarchy consisting of implementations of various tree search algorithms for specific problem types. The Branch, Constrain, and Price Software (BiCePS) is a data management layer built on top of ALPS for implementing relaxation-based branch and bound algorithms. The BiCePS Linear Integer Solver (BLIS) is a concretization of the BiCePS layer for solving mixed-integer linear programs. ALPS, BiCePS, and BLIS are sub-repostories of the CHiPPS Subversion repository.

News

• The latest stable version of ALPS is .
• The current stable version of BiCePS is .
• The current stable version of BLIS is .
• Click ​here to see the current change log.

July 17, 2013

• New releases of Alps, BiCePS, and Blis including minor fixes and upgrades
  • Version ​1.4.4 of Alps
  • Version ​0.93.5 of BiCePS
  • Version ​0.93.5 of Blis

April 28, 2013

• New release of Alps
  • Version ​1.4.3 of Alps

January 15, 2013

• New releases of BiCePS, and Blis
  • Version ​0.93.4 of BiCePS
  • Version ​0.93.4 of Blis

March 3, 2012

• New releases of BiCePS, and Blis
  • Version ​0.93.3 of BiCePS
  • Version ​0.93.3 of Blis

February 10, 2012

• New releases of Alps, BiCePS, and Blis including fixes for the build system and other minor fixes.
  • Version ​1.4.2 of Alps
  • Version ​0.93.2 of BiCePS
  • Version ​0.93.2 of Blis

November 7, 2011

• New releases of Alps, BiCePS, and Blis including minor fixes.
  • Version ​1.4.1 of Alps
  • Version ​0.93.1 of BiCePS
  • Version ​0.93.1 of Blis

November 4, 2011

• New stable version ​1.4 of Alps created
  • Corrected some problems with output
  • Modified statistics to take into account partial processing of nodes
  • Updates to build system
  • Click ​here to see the differences from ​1.3
• New stable version ​0.93 of BiCePS created
• New stable version ​0.93 of BLIS created

July 5, 2011

• New stable version 0.82 of ​BiCePS and ​BLIS created.
  • License has been changed to the EPL
  • Support for MSVC++ version 10 added
  • Support for ​BuildTools version ​0.7 to incorporate recent enhancements, including proper library versioning in Linux, prohibiting installation of private headers, etc.

June 26, 2011

• New stable version ​1.3 of Alps created
  • License has been changed to the EPL
  • Support for MSVC++ version 10 added
  • Support for ​BuildTools version ​0.7 to incorporate recent enhancements, including proper library versioning in Linux, prohibiting installation of private headers, etc.

Supported Platforms

• GNU/Linux (gcc)
• MS Windows (MSVC++, Cygwin, Msys/MinGW)
• Mac OSX (gcc)
• Solaris (gcc, Sun studio)
• AIX (xlc)

Download

You can obtain the CHiPPS source code either via subversion or in form of ​release tarballs. The recommended method is to use subversion because it makes it easier to obtain updates. The following commands may be used to obtain and build CHiPPS from the source code using subversion:

1. svn checkout ​https://projects.coin-or.org/svn/CHiPPS/<Alps|Bcps|Blis>/stable/<version> Coin-<Alps|Bcps|Blis>
2. cd Coin-<Alps|Bcps|Blis>
3. ./configure -C
4. make
5. make test
6. make install

Step 1 issues the subversion command to obtain the source code. For example, to obtain a copy of BLIS stable version 0.91, one can use the command

svn checkout https://projects.coin-or.org/svn/CHiPPS/Blis/stable/0.92 Blis-0.92

The svn checkout will create a new directory called Blis-0.92/. After download completes, this directory will contain BLIS stable version 0.91 and other dependent packages (ALPS, BiCePS, Clp, Cgl, etc.). Alternatively one can obtain the source code from the ​download directory at COIN-OR by downloading an archived point release.

Step 3 runs a configure script that generates the make files.

Step 4 builds the <Alps|Bcps|Blis> library and executable program for an example applications.

Step 5 builds and runs the unit test program.

Step 6 Installs libraries, executables and header files in directories Coin-<Alps|Bcps|Blis>/lib, Coin-<Alps|Bcps|Blis>/bin and Coin-<Alps|Bcps|Blis>/include.

The ​BuildTools project has additional details on downloading, building, and installing.

External Project Dependencies

If you download the Alps package, you get ​these additional projects. If you download Bcps, you automatically get Alps, and if you download Blis, you automatically get Bcps and Alps.

Authors and Licensing

CHiPPS is written in C++ and is distributed as open source code under the ​Common Public License (CPL). The developers of CHiPPS are

• ​Yan Xu
• ​Ted Ralphs
• Laszlo Ladanyi
• ​Matthew Saltzman

CHiPPS is currently maintained by ​Yan Xu and ​Ted Ralphs at the ​COR@L Lab at Lehigh University.

Acknowledgements

The development of this software was partially supported by NSF grants ACI-0102687, DMI-0522796, and DMS-0532265, as well as a faculty partnership grant from IBM Research.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or IBM.