Can we handle a binary variable like a normal variable in GAMS

Question

Can we treat any binary variable like a normal variable in GAMS? Is there a way to convert it? like in TSP x(i,j) is 1 if the edge between vertex i and j is selected otherwise 0. can we treat x(i,j) as normal variable and it still give correct results?

Answer 1

So, you want to relax the integer requirement of your binary variable while still keeping it restricted between 0 and 1? If you want to do that for all variables, you can just solve an rmip instead of a mip (see https://www.gams.com/40/docs/UG_ModelSolve.html#UG_ModelSolve_model_types). If want to relax this for only one or some variable, you can do this by setting the .prior attribute to +inf (see https://www.gams.com/40/docs/UG_Variables.html#UG_Variables_VariableAttributes).