Getting Started

Quick start

Interested in using Choco-solver in your project? Choco-solver is available as a Java library or a Python package.

Java

The only prerequisite for running Choco-solver is to have Java 17 (or later) installed on your machine. We strongly recommend to use a build automation tool, like Maven (3.6.0+) or Gradle (6+), but adding manually the JAR file to the classpath is still an option.

Important: slf4j-nop is no longer included as a runtime dependency. You must provide your own SLF4J binding (e.g., slf4j-simple or logback-classic) to avoid SLF4J warnings, or add slf4j-nop explicitly if you want to suppress logging:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
    <artifactId>slf4j-nop</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.9</version>
</dependency>

Maven 3.6.0+

Copy-paste the artifact description to your pom.xml:

<dependency>
   <groupId>org.choco-solver</groupId>
   <artifactId>choco-solver</artifactId>
   <version>6.0.0</version>
</dependency>

To test snapshot release, you should update your pom.xml with :

<repository>
    <id>sonatype</id>
    <url>https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots/</url>
    <snapshots>
        <enabled>true</enabled>
    </snapshots>
</repository>

Gradle 6+ (requires Java 17)

Copy-paste the dependency declaration in your build.gradle:

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    implementation 'org.choco-solver:choco-solver:6.0.0'
}

As a stand-alone application

When one wants to manually add choco-solver as a dependency of a project, it’s important to pay attention to the following points:

• In the latest version, the library is available as a single JAR file that defines what is necessary and sufficient to model and solve problems programmatically and includes additional functions to parse FlatZinc, XCSP3, DIMACS or MPS files directly.
• The archive is released with dependencies. If one wants an archive without any dependencies, it is recommended to use Maven or Gradle.
• Finally, the javadoc of each version is also available on line.

The next step is simply to add the jar file to the classpath of your application and eventually the javadoc.

Python

We automatically build 64-bit wheels for Python versions 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, and 3.10 on Linux, Windows and MacOSX. They can be directly downloaded from PyPI:

pip install pychoco

Community

Stay up to date on the development of Choco solver and reach out to the community with these helpful resources.

• Join the Discord server for discussion and quick help.
• Get help on Stack Overflow (tagged choco).
• Use the issue tracker on GitHub to report issues. As far as possible, provide a Minimal Working Example.

Feel free to meet cho-coders : @cprudhom (Charles Prud’homme) and @jgFages (Jean-Guillaume Fages)