here i attach one file, but to build connecting ARENA with VBA.. I hope it can give you some idea..thanks 

To my knowledge, Arena can only be integrated with Microsoft technologies. Visual Basic for Applications if specific algorithms are needed. 

It also supports ActiveX controls. This may open the way to a Java interface if you use JACOB (http://sourceforge.net/projects/jacob-project/)

ARENA has the capability of linking with VBA only. I have been using that.

Hi,

I've already used ARENA (actually, SIMAN) inside a C code. It is easy to embed it this way. Exchanges of information could be easily done by writing data into a file, then the simulation read the file at launch (getting parameters, etc etc).

So it should be easy to do this in java by using siman.exe to execute your model/experiment files inside your GA. hope this helps, if you want more information I'll try to be more precise.

Have a nice day

Edit:

In order to be more explicit:

Inside Arena, you can model whatever you want. When you execute the simulation, arena uses two files: the model and the experiment which you can see when going to Run/SIMAN/View inside ARENA. These two files have the extension .mod and .exp and are used by Arena to generate a .p file which is the one used for the simulation.

To generate the .p file, Arena uses the model.exe, the experiment.exe, the linker.exe which you can find in the Arena installation folder (with a lot of .dll which are used by the compilers/simulation engine). To generate the .p file, arena compiles the .mod into a .m using the model.exe, then it compiles the .exp into a .e with the experiment.exe, then it generates the .p by using the linker.exe which takes both the .m and the .e files in parameter. Once you have this .p file you can launch the simulation using siman.exe (same folder as model.exe, etc…)

What I did in C was to generate the model and the experiment according to the structure of my problem (how many machines, etc etc…), then I used an optimization algorithm which use the simulation (for this I extracted all useful .exe and dll in the Arena folder). Here is an example:

// generate .e

string cmdE = "expmt.exe ..\\FILE_PATH\\file.exp ..\\FILE_PATH\\file.e ";

system(cmdE.c_str());

// generate .m

string cmdM = "model.exe ..\\FILE_PATH\\file.mod ..\\FILE_PATH\\file.m ";

system(cmdM.c_str());

// generate .p

string cmdL = "linker.exe ..\\FILE_PATH\\file.e ..\\FILE_PATH\\file.m

system(cmdL.c_str());

// execute the simulation:

// export data to a file read during simulation

string cmdS = "..\\FILE_PATH \\siman.exe ..\\FILE_PATH\\file.p"; // you can use ≫ to redirect output

system(cmdS.c_str());

Hope this will be useful

Use Anylogic if you like Java ...Anylogic, to a great extent, is similar to Arena; moreover, the models' codes are translated to Java. If you need it for a research work, then the evaluation version might be enough

Use Anylogic if you like Java ...Anylogic, to a great extent, is similar to Arena; moreover, the models' codes are translated to Java. If you need it for a research work, then the evaluation version might be enough

I used SIMAN.EXE and .P file. It runs from JAVA:

String command = path + "siman.exe " + path + "file.p";

Process newprocess = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command);

Thank you very much Damien Lamy! 

Hi Damien and Cansu

During my Ph.d work (2008 with ARENA 12.0) I also developed my model with ARENA and execute it in ARENA just one time in order to get the .p file. After that to optimize I developed with C language the Simulated annealing and I execute the .p file to get result.

The C command I used was:

spawnl(P_WAIT,"C:siman.exe","siman C:/travailfin/Mymodel.p",NULL);

However I tried this week to execute this command with an Arena 14.0 file and it doesn’t work.

Damien please have you ever use this C command? Do you have another C code that I can use?

Cansu can you please tell me which Arena version do you use? Actually I’m wondering that with ARENA 14.0 it is no more allowed to do this type of external .p file execution.

Thanks

Currently, I use ARENA 14.7 Academic version. With the student version it doesn't work!

Also, I put the SIMAN.exe and .p file under the same folder!

Hi Amel,

I never used spawn(), I use system() as said before (you can use exec() too):

string cmdS = "..\\FILE_PATH\\siman.exe ..\\FILE_PATH\\file.p";

system(cmdS.c_str());

I'm also using ARENA 14.7 Academic version and it works well.

It would be surprising that an old P file is not executable anymore, but try to rebuild the P file maybe?

Have a nice day

Thank you Cansu and Damien it WORKS for me too !

I prefer this simulation manner it is really faster for simulation based optimization !

Hi Damien and Cansu, I'm having the same problem, but my optimization problem was implemented in Matlab, I used the following command:

system('expmt.exe DoutoradoARENA_DADOS.exp DoutoradoARENA_DADOS.e');

system('model.exe DoutoradoARENA_DADOS.mod DoutoradoARENA_DADOS.m');

system('linker.exe DoutoradoARENA_DADOS.e DoutoradoARENA_DADOS.m DoutoradoARENA_DADOS.p');

system('siman.exe DoutoradoARENA_DADOS.p');

I could create all files, except for .p, could you help me on this?

thanks!

ups! just understand my error! thanks! it was very usefull!

Hi all, I am trying to apply Damien's and Barbara method with Python.

As Barbara I am able to create .e and .m file but it fails in creating the .p one.

Any guess? here is my code:

import subprocess

import os

projectFolderPath= os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath("__file__"))

doeFilePath= projectFolderPath+"//model//model1.doe"

expmtExePath= projectFolderPath+"//ArenaFiles//expmt.exe"

modelExePath=projectFolderPath+"//ArenaFiles//model.exe"

linkerExePath=projectFolderPath+"//ArenaFiles//linker.exe"

simanExePath=projectFolderPath+"//ArenaFiles//siman.exe"

arenaExePath=projectFolderPath+"//ArenaFiles//arena.exe"

eFilePath=pFilePath=projectFolderPath+"//model//Model1.e"

modFilePath=pFilePath=projectFolderPath+"//model//Model1.mod"

mFilePath=pFilePath=projectFolderPath+"//model//Model1.m"

pFilePath=projectFolderPath+"//model//Model1.p"

expFilePath=projectFolderPath+"//model//Model1.exp"

subprocess.check_call([expmtExePath, expFilePath, eFilePath])

subprocess.check_call([modelExePath, modFilePath, mFilePath])

subprocess.check_call([linkerExePath, eFilePath, mFilePath])

subprocess.check_call([simanExePath, pFilePath])

subprocess.check_call([arenaExePath, doeFilePath])