Documentation

Next: The Gurobi Python Interface Up: Interactive Shell Previous: Interface customization

Customization through callbacks

Another type of customization we'd like to touch on briefly can be achieved through Gurobi callbacks. Callbacks allow you to track the progress of the optimization process. For the sake of our example, let's say you want the MIP optimizer to run for 10 seconds before quitting, but you don't want it to terminate before it finds a feasible solution. The following callback method would implement this condition:

from gurobipy import *

def mycallback(model, where):
  if where == GRB.Callback.MIP:
    time = model.cbGet(GRB.Callback.RUNTIME)
    best = model.cbGet(GRB.Callback.MIP_OBJBST)
    if time > 10 and best < GRB.INFINITY:
      model.terminate()

Once you import this function (from custom import *), you can then say m.optimize(mycallback) to obtain the desired termination behavior. Alternatively, you could define your own custom optimize method that always invokes the callback:

def myopt(model):
  model.optimize(mycallback)

You can pass arbitrary data into your callback through the model object. For example, if you set m._mydata = 1 before calling optimize(), you can query m._mydata inside your callback function. Note that the names of user data fields must begin with an underscore.

This callback example is included in <installdir>/examples/python/custom.py. Type from custom import * to import the callback and the myopt() function.

You can type help(GRB.Callback) for more information on callbacks. You can also refer to the Callback class documentation in the Gurobi Reference Manual.

---

Next: The Gurobi Python Interface Up: Interactive Shell Previous: Interface customization