# TNC : truncated newton bound contrained minimization in C
# Version 1.3
# Copyright J.S. Roy (js@jeannot.org), 2002-2005
# See the LICENSE file for copyright information.
# $Jeannot: README,v 1.32 2005/01/28 15:12:09 js Exp $

This software is a C implementation of TNBC, a truncated newton minimization
package originally developed by Stephen G. Nash in Fortran.

The original source code can be found at :
http://iris.gmu.edu/~snash/nash/software/software.html

Copyright for the original TNBC Fortran routines:

  TRUNCATED-NEWTON METHOD:  SUBROUTINES
    WRITTEN BY:  STEPHEN G. NASH
          SCHOOL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING
          GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
          FAIRFAX, VA 22030

This software aims at minimizing the value a of nonlinear function whose
variables are subject to bound constraints. It requires to be able to evaluate
the function and its gradient and is especially useful for solving large scale
problems.

This software has been rewritten from the Fortran into C and provides the
following modifications :
- reentrancy (no global variables) ;
- ability to pass a pointer to the function to be optimized (to provide
  access to constants) ;
- ability to rescale the function and variables ;
- better handling of constant (low == up) variables ;
- a simpler convergence test ;
- ability to end the minimization at any time ;
And many other small changes.

This software has been tested on a large number of platforms and should run
on any POSIX platform with an ANSI C compiler.

The last version (and other software) is avalaible at the URL :
http://www.jeannot.org/~js/code/index.en.html

A Python interface module is also provided.

Contents :
- tnc.c : Source
- tnc.h : Header, and API documentation
- LICENSE : License and copyright information
- HISTORY : Release history
- README : This file
- example.c : A simple example
- Makefile : Make file used to build the examples
- moduleTNC.c : the source of the python module
- tnc.py : the python module wrapper
- example.py : an example for the python module
- setup.py : the python installer

Use is described in tnc.h. For more information, see the example.
The example can be built and executed by doing :
  make test

You may need to adjust the Makefile before building tnc.

To install the module in the current directory, use:
 python setup.py build_ext --inplace
To test it, execute:
  python tnc.py
To install it globaly, use:
 python setup.py install

Thanks to eric jones <eric@enthought.com> for providing the setup script.

If you make use of this software and observe incorrect behavior on some
problems, or if you make modifications to it (for a specific platform for
example), you are encouraged to send the sources involved to the author at
the following email : js@jeannot.org
Thanks !
