Additional files related to an AIMMS project
Project-related files
In addition to the AIMMS project folders and files associated discussed in Creating a new project, using an AIMMS project either during development or in a deployment scenario may actually result in the creation of a number of files not mentioned before:
the name change file (with a
.nchextension),one or more case files (with a
.dataextension),a user database file (with a
.usrextension),data backup files (with a
.bakextension),log, error and listing files from both AIMMS and its solvers (with
.log,.err,.lisor.staextensions).
Name change file
AIMMS has the capability to keep track of the name changes you performed
on identifiers in your model, and automatically replace an old
identifier name by its new one whenever AIMMS encounters a renamed
identifier. AIMMS keeps track of the list of such name changes in the
name change file (with a .nch extension). Each name change is listed
in this file on a separate line containing the old name, the new name
and the (GMT) time stamp at which the change was actually performed. The
automatic name change capabilities of AIMMS are explained in full detail
in Committing attribute changes
… and version control
If you are using a version control system to manage your AIMMS sources, it makes sense to also include the name change files under version control. When you change an identifier name, AIMMS will not directly refactor all pages to reflect the name change directly, but use the name change file to refactor a page when it is opened. The same is true when opening cases that contain data for the identifier the name of which has been changed. When your changes in a project are merged with another developer’s changes, the merged name change file will actually contain all name changes made by both developers.
Case files
Whenever you save a case in your AIMMS project (see also
Case Management), this will result in the creation of a .data file
on disk. By default these case files will be stored in the data
subfolder of project’s main folder.
Log, error and listing files
During the execution of your model, all log, error and listing
information from both AIMMS and its solvers (whether visible in the
AIMMS Message window or not) is copied to log, error and listing
files, which, by default, are stored in the Log subdirectory of the
project directory. If you are not interested in this information, you
can reduce the amount of information that is copied to these log files
by modifying the relevant execution options.
Data backups
Through the AutoSave & Backups-Data menu, you can specify that you want AIMMS to automatically create backups of the data used during a particular session of your project. The menu will pop up the Data Backup dialog box illustrated in Fig. 6.
Fig. 6 The Data Backup dialog box
Similarly as with the project backup files, you can indicate whether
AIMMS should automatically create backup backup files of the session
data at regular intervals, as well as how many data backup files should
be retained. Data backup files also have the .bak extension and
contain a reference to the date/time of the backup.
Manually creating backup files
Besides the automated backup scheme built into AIMMS, you can also
create backup files of your session data manually. You can create manual
backup files through the File-Data Backups menu. When you create a
data backup file manually, AIMMS will request a name of a .bak file
in which the backup is to be stored.
Restoring backup files
Through the File-Data Backups menu, you can restore the data in your application back to the state stored in the data backup files.
Project User Files
Warning
The AIMMS WinUI and Project User Files are deprecated, please refer to AIMMS Product Lifecycle. You may use the WebUI instead, the User Management and Create PRO User Groups
Project user files
Along with the project-related files created by AIMMS, you may need to distribute some other files with your project when deploying it to your end-users. Such files include, for instance, bitmap files displayed on buttons or in the background of your end-user pages, or files that contain project-related configuration data. Instead of having to include such files as separate files in the project directory, AIMMS also allows you to save them within the project file itself. Both within the AIMMS language as well as in the end-user interface, you can reference such project user files as if they were ordinary files on disk.
Why use project user files?
User project files are convenient in a number of situations. The most common reasons to store files as project user files are listed below.
You want to reduce the number files that you have to ship to your end users. This situation commonly occurs, for instance, when the end-user interface of your project references a large number of bitmap files.
You want to hide particular configuration data files from your end-users, which might otherwise only confuse them.
User project cannot be modified by your end-users.
Importing project user files
You can import files into the project file through the Tools-Project User Files menu, which will pop up the Project User Files dialog box illustrated in Fig. 7.
Fig. 7 The Project User Files dialog box
In this dialog box, you can create new folders to organize the files you want to import into the project file. The dialog box of Fig. 7 already contains a folder bitmaps, which is automatically added to each new AIMMS project and filled by AIMMS with the bitmaps used on AIMMS’ data pages (see Viewing and modifying identifier data). When you are inside a folder (or just within the main project file), you can import a file into it through the Import File button, which will open an ordinary file selection dialog box to select the disk file to be imported.
User files in library projects
When your project, next to the main project file, also includes a number of library project files (see Library projects and the library manager), AIMMS allows you to store user files in the library project files as well. Thus, if a page defined in a library refers to a particular bitmap file, you can also store that bitmap as a user file directly into the corresponding library project file. In the dialog box of Fig. 7, the CoreModel node at the root of the tree refers to a library that is included in the project that serves as the running example throughout this book. Underneath this node you can add user files that will be stored in the library project file for the CoreModel library.
Referencing project user files
You can reference project user files both from within the AIMMS language
and the properties of various objects with the graphical end-user
interface. The basic rule is that AIMMS considers the project file as a
virtual disk indicated by “<prj>”. You can use this virtual drive
in, for instance, READ, WRITE and PUT statements within your
model. Thus, the statement
READ from file "<prj>:config\\english.dat";
reads the model data from the project user file "english.dat"
contained in a (developer-created) config folder within the project
file.
Referencing user files in library projects
You can access project files in library projects by using the virtual
disk notation “<lib:library-name>”, where library-name
is the name of the library project. Thus, to read the same file as in
the previous paragraph from the CoreModel library shown in
Fig. 7, the following statement can be used.
READ from file "<lib:CoreModel>:config\\english.dat";
Use in end-user interface
Similarly, you can reference project user files on page objects in the end-user interface of your project. Fig. 8 illustrates the use of a bitmap file stored in the project file on a bitmap button.
Fig. 8 Bitmap button referencing a project user file
For all object properties expecting a file name (such as the File
Name property of the bitmap button illustrated in
Fig. 8), you can easily select a
project user file by pressing the wizard button 
, and
selecting the Select Project File menu item. This will pop up a
project user file selection dialog box similar to the dialog box shown
in Fig. 7.