Chapter 3: Introduction to Optimization, contains a brief overview of the legacy mathematical programming procedures in SAS/OR software and highlights the need to transition in the near future from these legacy procedures to the newer OPTMODEL family of SAS/OR mathematical programming procedures. This chapter also provides an introduction to optimization and the use of the legacy optimization tools in the SAS System; it describes how to build input SAS data sets (directly or by synthesizing multiple data sources), use the legacy procedures to identify optimal solutions, and construct reports to communicate optimal decisions. Following this introductory chapter, the next four chapters describe the LP, INTPOINT, NETFLOW, and NLP procedures.
The following list summarizes the types of information provided for each procedure:
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Overview |
provides a general description of what the procedure does. It outlines major capabilities of the procedure and lists all input and output data sets that are used with it. |
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Getting Started |
illustrates simple uses of the procedure in a few short examples. It provides introductory hands-on information for the procedure. |
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Syntax |
constitutes the major reference section for the syntax of the procedure. First, the statement syntax is summarized. Next, a functional summary table lists all the statements and options in the procedure, classified by function. In addition, the online version includes a Dictionary of Options, which provides an alphabetical list of all options. Following these tables, the PROC statement is described, and then all other statements are described in alphabetical order. |
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Details |
describes the features of the procedure, including algorithmic details and computational methods. It also explains how the various options interact with each other. This section describes input and output data sets in greater detail, with definitions of the output variables, and explains the format of printed output, if any. |
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Examples |
consists of examples that are designed to illustrate the use of the procedure. Each example includes a description of the problem and lists the options that are highlighted by the example. The example shows the data and the SAS statements needed, and includes the output that is produced. You can duplicate the examples by copying the statements and data and running the SAS program. The SAS Sample Library contains the code that is used to run the examples shown in this book; consult your SAS Software representative for specific information about the Sample Library. |
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References |
lists references that are relevant to the chapter. |