Is bintprog still invokable post-R2013?

I'm still using R2013, and I notice that bintprog has no online documentation in the R2014 version of the Optimization Toolbox. I understand that intlinprog would render bintprog obsolete, and for that reason use of it should be discontinued. However, I am wondering if R2104 will be backward compatible with any current code I have that calls bintprog, once I do finally get around to upgrading. Is bintprog still alive in R2104, invisible in the documentation, but perhaps calling intlinprog under the hood?

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

According to the ‘Tips’ section of the intlinprog documentation:

• intlinprog replaces bintprog. To update old bintprog code to use intlinprog, make the following changes:

    Set |intcon| to |1:numVars|, where |numVars| is the number of variables in your problem.

    Set |lb| to |zeros(numVars,1)|.

    Set |ub| to |ones(numVars,1)|.

    Update any relevant options. Use |optimoptions| to create options for |intlinprog|.

    Change your call to |bintprog| as follows:

      [x,fval,exitflag,output] = bintprog(f,A,b,Aeq,Beq,x0,options)
      % Change your call to:
      [x,fval,exitflag,output] = intlinprog(f,intcon,A,b,Aeq,Beq,lb,ub,options)

No recent experience with this. Just quoting from the documentation.

[Matt J]

Thanks. Sounds ominous, though. Do you have the R2014 Optimization Toolbox? If so, could you tell me what you get in response to

>>which bintprog

[Star Strider]

My pleasure.

I do. I get:

C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2014b\toolbox\optim\optim\bintprog.m

so it exists, but searching in the online or offline documentation for it brings up only intlinprog. (I wonder if intlinprog is a wrapper for it, or if bintprog is just there for legacy purposes?)

EDIT —

If you have a small sample routine you’d like to run to test bintprog on R2014b, send it along and I’ll see if it works.

[Matt J]

I wonder if intlinprog is a wrapper for it, or if bintprog is just there for legacy purposes?

Yes, I'm still curious about that as well. I see now that the optimoptions for intlinprog are rather different than bintprog. That could be why making one a wrapper for the other isn't so simple.

If you have a small sample routine you’d like to run to test bintprog on R2014b, send it along and I’ll see if it works.

Could you try this,

   >> bintprog(1,1,1,1,1)

[Star Strider]

I’ll be glad to.

Unfortunately, the bintprog call gets an mlint red underline with the same message as it throws when I run it:

Error using bintprog (line 7)
BINTPROG has been removed. Use INTLINPROG instead. See the Tips section in the INTLINPROG function reference page.

You have my sympathies!

[Matt J]

Aargh. That is unfortunate, and a bit strange on the part of the developers not to at least leave a legacy version in there.

But, in my case, I can probably cook up a wrapper for intlinprog without too much pain.

Thanks again.

[Star Strider]

My pleasure, as always.

I was thinking that perhaps its .m file would offer the possibility of copying it and renaming it something convenient and using it as before, but when I opened its .m file in the Editor, I got this:

function [x,fval,exitflag,output] = bintprog(f,A,b,Aeq,beq,x0,options)
%BINTPROG has been removed. Use INTLINPROG instead.

%   Copyright 1990-2014 The MathWorks, Inc.

% Error for deprecation
error(message('optim:bintprog:NotSupported', ...
                addLink( 'Tips section', 'intlinprog_replaces_bintprog' )));