NLPy is a Python package for numerical optimization. It aims to provide a toolbox for solving linear and nonlinear programming problems that is both easy to use and extensible.
NLPy combines the capabilities of the mature AMPL modeling language with the high-quality numerical resources and object-oriented power of the Python programming language. This combination makes NLPy an excellent tool to prototype and test optimization algorithms, and also a great teaching aid for optimization.
NLPy can read optimization problems coded in the AMPL modeling language. All aspects of a problem can be examined and the problem solved. Individual objective and constraint functions, together with their derivatives (if they exist) can be accessed transparently through an object-oriented framework.
NLPy is extensible and new algorithms can be built by assembling the supplied building blocks, or by creating new building blocks. Existing building blocks include procedures for solving symmetric (possibly indefinite) linear systems via symmetric factorizations or preconditioned iterative solvers, iterative methods for linear least-squares problems, minimization methods for constrained and unconstrained optimization, and much more.
NLPy is a collection of tools and interfaces for implementing and prototyping optimization algorithms. It is a set of Python modules and classes that support sparse matrices, nonlinear optimization methods, and the efficient solution of large sparse linear systems, especially those occuring in the course of optimization algorithms (e.g., symmetric indefinite systems).
The purpose of NLPy is to offer an environment in which implementing, testing, prototyping, experimenting with, and modifying and creating innovative optimization algorithms for large-scale constrained problems is a moderately easy task. We feel that the environment should be useful, simple, and intuitive enough that programmers need only concentrate on the logic of the algorithm instead of the intricacies of the programming language. We believe that NLPy is appropriate for teaching, for learning, and also for bleeding edge research in large-scale numerical optimization. This is achieved by providing the heavy-duty number-crunching procedures in fast, low-level languages such as C, Fortran 77, and Fortran 90/95.
NLPy aims to
NLPy is designed as an object-oriented Python layer over lower-level subprograms. The subprograms, written in C, Fortran 77, and Fortran 90/95, implement the most numerically-intensive tasks.
These low-level subprograms include MA27 and MA57 for the multifrontal solution of symmetric linear systems, ICFS for preconditioned conjugate gradients with limited-memory Cholesky factorization, and GLTR for the solution of trust-region subproblems, to name a few.
All the sparse matrix capabilities in NLPy are based on the Pysparse package.
The main purpose of NLPy is to facilitate access and manipulation of optimization problems. Therefore, an interface to the AMPL modeling language was designed. It allows access to components of models and to take advantage of the automatic differentiation abilities of AMPL.
The above and the design of the Python language combine with interfaces written in C and in which only pointers are exchanged, leads to an environment suitable for the efficient solution of large-scale problems.