NLopt is a library for nonlinear local and global optimization, forfunctions with and without gradient information. It is designed asas simple, unified interface and packaging of several free/open-sourcenonlinear optimization libraries.The latest version and a complete manual may be found at the NLopthome page: http://ab-initio.mit.edu/nloptIt is compiled and installed with the standard GNU autoconf/automakecommands: ./configure make make install(See `./configure --help` or the `INSTALL` file for other options.)Once it is installed, `#include <nlopt.h>` in your C/C++ programs andlink it with `-lnlopt -lm`. You may need to use the C++ compiler to linkin order to include the C++ libraries (which are used internally by NLopt,even though it has a C API).The minimization function, `nlopt_minimize`, is described in the [manpage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_page)(`api/nlopt_minimize.3`,which is installed by `make install`.There are also interfaces for Fortran, Python, Matlab, Octave, OCaml,GNU Guile, GNU R, Lua, and Julia. Interfaces for other languages maybe added in the future.