HiPO not available in VC++ application?

[rbp-bowmaker]

Hi, I'm keen to try the new HiPO solver in my application, which is built using C++ in Visual Studio. However, I am getting the following runtime error:

The HiPO solver was requested via the "solver" option. The following features are unavailable: amd, blas, metis, rcm

It then defaults to the simplex solver.

This is what I'm doing to build it:

1. Pull the latest HiGHS release (1.15.1) from GitHub
2. Build using the following commends:

 cmake -S . -B build -DHIPO=ON -DBUILD_OPENBLAS=ON
 cmake --build build
 cmake --build build --config Release
 cmake --install build

3. Statically link the generated highs.lib into my application

Am I missing anything?

Thanks

[galabovaa]

Thank you for raising this, we are missing some documentation there.

Please check out the "latest" branch instead of 1.15.1 ( we are about to release v1.16). You could download the zip too from https://github.com/ERGO-Code/HiGHS/tree/latest

On Windows, cmake --install places highs_extras.dll in the bin folder of the install directory. Copy it next to your application's .exe, or add its folder to PATH, and distribute it with your application.

Please let me know if this works!

To link everything into your application instead, so that no shared library is needed, build with

cmake -S. -B build -DHIPO=ON -DBUILD_OPENBLAS=ON -DBUILD_SHARED_EXTRAS_LIB=OFF

and link highs, highs_extras and openblas.

[galabovaa]

Performance: latest compiles OpenBLAS with clang-cl, which allows optimised kernels that MSVC can't build. For this you need the Visual Studio component "C++ Clang Compiler for Windows" (or LLVM), plus Ninja. If they're missing, CMake warns and falls back to MSVC, so check the configure output for Building OpenBLAS ... with ...clang-cl.exe.

[jajhall]

Thanks @galabovaa, please let us know how you get on @rbp-bowmaker in case the answer needs further explanation

[galabovaa]

We may have a bug as well, I am looking into it further, your feedback is much appreciated!

[rbp-bowmaker]

Thanks, based on your responses, I have got it working. For other's reference, this is what I did:

1. Pulled a fresh copy of the 'latest' branch
2. Installed clang tools in Visual Studio
3. Built with: cmake -S. -B build -DHIPO=ON -DBUILD_OPENBLAS=ON -DBUILD_SHARED_EXTRAS_LIB=OFF
4. Rebuilt my application, linking in:
   • source\repos\HiGHS\build\Release\bin\highs.lib
   • source\repos\HiGHS\build\Release\bin\highs_extras.lib
   • source\repos\HiGHS\build_deps\openblas-clang\install\lib\openblas.lib

Now my application can use the HiPO solver without error.

(After all that, it turns out that for my application the Dual Simplex SIP solver is still the fastest, but it was worth a try!)