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Welcome to the or-tools library main documentation hub

We are working hard to provide useful documentation. The documentation is distributed in several documents:

• the Getting started page: explains how to download and install the library.
• the user's manual: a user's guide that explains the Constraint Programming part of the library.
• the tutorial examples: all the complete examples presented in the user's manual.
• the reference manual: the documentation generated by doxygen.
• the F.A.Q.: frequently asked questions.

You can find more details about these documents in the foreword of the manual.

For suggestions, remarks, corrections about the documentation, please contact Thank you very much.

The or-tools documentation is covered by the Apache License 2.0.

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What's new?

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Here is a little summary:

v.0.2.13: (2014-10-30 00:01:40)
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* chapter 1: all pages are now accessible.

This is the list of changes.

Legend:

• added: written for the first time;
• rewritten: substantial changes;
• enhanced: minor changes;
• updated: code did change...;
• reviewed: reread with a critical eye for the maths and the working of the library!
• corrected: passed through the mill...;
• published: you can read it!;
• removed: for the better!

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The User's Manual

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This is work in progress. Pages will be modified, moved or even removed!

As of September 4, 2014, the manual is NOT up to date with the new API. The tutorial code however IS up to date!

The epub version is still experimental. We strongly recommend calibre (ebook-viewer) whenever possible to view the epub version. With this version, you should be able to convert the manual to the right format for your preferred hand-held device.For instance, to transform the epub version into a mobi version:

We also recommend to use the epub version as it is currently the best available ebook format.

The manual

• Online version
• Manuals in pdf and epub versions

Progress at a glance:

The following percentages show you the completion status of the manual. Note that what we publish online might be not up to date.

Manual

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The tutorial examples

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You can download all the code at once or pick the code corresonding to your favorite language. You'll find the code here. All files are encoded in UTF-8 and we use LF (Unix) newlines. The code is cross-platform though.

The code is not well documented inside the source files as we explain it in great details in the user's manual. Some files only exist in some languages since some features do not have equivalents in all languages (for instance, the Google gflags library is missing in Java and C#).

Don't be surprised if the code in the manual is slightly different from the code in the tutorials. In the manual, we focus on the essential while the tutorials might be more functional.

Code

Content as of September 4, 2014:

• C++: chapters 2, 3, 6 and almost all of chapter 10.
• Python: chapter 2.
• Java: chapter 2.
• C#: chapter 2.

Coding styles

Coding styles we follow:

C++

Google C++ Style Guide

Python

Google Python Style Guide

Coding styles we try to follow:

Java

Android Code Style Rules

C#

google-api-dotnet-client Coding standards

C++ tutorials

We've filled the code with VLOG(x)s which allow to follow in real time what the programs do. x varies between 1 and 4. The higher the value of x, the more detailed informations on screen. You can trigger these logs with the log_level gflag:

We'll find a similar mechanism for the other languages soon.

Makefiles are (finally) provided. We favor the use of dynamic libraries. See Compiling libraries and running the examples on how to use these makefiles.

In short:

1. You have to redefine the OR_TOOLS_TOP variable with the root directory of the or-tools libary:
   OR_TOOLS_TOP=/home/username/or-tools-read-only
   You can also overwrite this variable when invoking make:
   make OR_TOOLS_TOP=/home/username/or-tools-read-only
2. If you want to play with the routing examples, the TUTORIAL variable must point to the C++ tutorial directory. By default, it is defined as:
   TUTORIAL=($OR_TOOLS_TOP)/documentation/tutorials/cplusplus
   If you deploy the tutorial examples somewhere else, update this variable accordingly.
3. If you want to compile all examples:
   make all
4. If you want to compile a specific example:
   • Windows:
     make my_example.exe
   • MacOS and Unix:
     make my_example
5. To delete all generated files:
   make local_clean
   Don't use
   make clean
   as you will erase the generated files for the whole library!

Last but not least, you might wonder why we don't use (or rather minimize the use of) streams in our examples. This is an internal requirement.

Python tutorials

Java tutorials

C# tutorials

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