Re: [Help-glpk] adding --csv output

[Robbie Morrison]

Hi Kevin, hello list

> ------------------------------------------------------------
> To:          GLPK Help List <address@hidden>
> Subject:     [Help-glpk] adding --csv output
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> From:        Kevin Hunter <address@hidden>
> Date:        Thu, 13 Jan 2011 02:24:25 -0500
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hullo Andrew, List,
>
> I had need of an unambiguous version (for machine
> parsing) of the output provided by the glp_print_*
> functions.  Consequently, I've created an equivalent
> set of glp_csv_* functions.  With this patch, one can
> use a --csv <file> flag:

[snip]

Some oblique thoughts on CSV output.

First, the GLPK wikibook page on interoperability might
provide some useful background to this discussion:

  http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GLPK/Interoperability

Perhaps someone might like to run the "short example"
(from that page) with this new feature and then post
the results back here?

Second, I think a good conceptual separation between
the following is necessary:

  * problem specification formats
  * solution recovery formats
  * solver performance metrics

Would it be useful to also generalize this discussion
to include some or all of these other aspects?  Or is
that missing the point entirely!

Third, there have been a similar threads on XML
(eXtensible Markup Language) output in the past.
XML and CSV are clearly different, but some of the
motivations for deployment may well be similar.

Fourth, I recently had cause to parse stringified
CSV using Boost C++ library calls.  The use of
"" within double-quoted fields (to indicate inches
or minutes of arc, for instance) caused problems.
If this little CSV oddity could be avoided under
--csv, then that could be useful.

all the best
---
Robbie Morrison
PhD student -- policy-oriented energy system simulation
Technical University of Berlin (TU-Berlin), Germany
University email (redirected) : address@hidden
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