XML Format Guide

All of the instances included on this site are specified in XML files. While a TSPLIB format may be more traditional, the XML format allows for the instance to be easily parsed by multiple coding languages.

The first part of each XML file includes a preamble that specifies a variety of useful metrics regarding the instance. This is an example of the preamble:

Following the preamble are the data relevant to the jobs. This section is bound by the <dac_jobs></dac_jobs> tags. Within those tags each job is bound by a set of <job></job> tags. The tags should be self-explanatory, but this graphic provides additional insight.