I have a error on installing CPLEX 12.10 to Python 3.8

Question

I am trying to install CPLEX studio 12.10 to Python 3.8. I'm using Visual studio code editor.

Referring to https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSSA5P_12.8.0/ilog.odms.cplex.help/CPLEX/GettingStarted/topics/set_up/Python_setup.html, I use the command "python setup.py install --home C:\Program Files\IBM\ILOG\CPLEX_Studio1210\cplex\python\3.7\x64_win64". But error " can't open file 'setup.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory" is appeared.

How to solve this problem?. I also checked that setup.py is in the above folder.

Answer 1

You need to find setup.py first by going the folder that CPLEX is installed (use the path you wrote after install --home). Furthermore, the path after install --home is to the directory where your Python is installed. See this answer for details.

Also, CPLEX 12.10 doesn't support Python 3.8 for now.

Answer 2

There is a workaround for this problem if you are able to modify the underlying python library shipped with CPLEX. Essentially, the python interface is the same, but the program will check your python version and prevent you from installing and using it if the version does not match.

Go to /path/to/installation/cplex/python, you should see 2 directories (3.6 and 3.7). Make a copy of 3.7 and rename it as your python version, for example, 3.8 or 3.9. In /path/to/installation/cplex/python/<your_python_version>/<your_os>/setup.py and /path/to/installation/cplex/python/<your_python_version>/<your_os>/cplex/_internal/_pycplex_platform.py, remove the code that checks python version.

The above is tested on x86_64 Linux with python 3.9.2 using the official docplex library (you will need to export an environmental variable, see the official documentation). I suppose if you run setup.py to install the cplex python libaray, it should also work. Beware this is not officially supported, and do it at your own risk.