Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sun!amdcad!dgcad!dg-rtp!usenet From: oates@jupiter.rtp.dg.com (Tim Oates) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: scheduling question Message-ID: <1991Jun10.130741.20086@dg-rtp.dg.com> Date: 10 Jun 91 13:07:41 GMT Sender: usenet@dg-rtp.dg.com (Usenet Administration) Organization: Data General Corporation, RTP, NC. Lines: 19 I'm currently writing a PC based application that will schedule meetings between resources. The task is very similar to the process of scheduling students for classes in high school - students and teachers cannot be in more than one class at a time, a room cannot have more than one class in it at a time, etc. The problem which leads to the question I have is that there are also a great number of constraints that I need to take into account that are non-linear. By non-linear I mean that they do not fall neatly into the linear programming model. For example, if A has a meeting with B, C, or D followed by a meeting with someone other than B, C, or D then there must be a Z minute block of free time between those meetings. The question is, is there a standard way of dealing with this? Can someone point me to references? I'm looking into some search algorithms that apply to contraint satisfaction problems but I'm afraid that they will be much too slow on a PC. Any help would be greatly appreciated. -tim email -- oates@dg-rtp.dg.com #include