trnsport in Microsoft Solver Foundation

These screendumps show how the trnsport.gms model from the GAMS model library can be expressed in OML. Note that all data manipulation is done in Excel.

OML does not allow for any data manipulation. That means that data preparation (model calibration, balancing, aggregation, set manipulation etc) needs to be done outside the modeling language. The same for data manipulation during report writing or when developing heuristic algorithms instead of a single solve.

Most of my GAMS models include a large part doing data manipulation. Often more than 80%. It would not be as convenient to be forced to move all data manipulation out of the modeling language and into a database, or spreadsheet.

I have not figured out yet if there is a mechanism to handle exceptions in OML like the $ such that operator in GAMS.