GNU Oflox: an academic software for the minimal cost network flow problem

We present an open-source software package written for GNU Octave. The software is an implementation of the Simplex algorithm for the minimal cost network flow problem oriented towards the academic environment. The implementation supports the use of Big-M and Phase I/Phase II methods and it can also start from a given feasible solution. Flexibility of the package's output configuration provides many attractive possibilities. The outputs are plain editable LaTeX files that can be modified and orchestrated to fit most academic needs. It can be used in examination materials, homework assignments or even form part of a project. The format used to describe the network is the DIMACS min file format to which a simple extension was added in order to support the description of feasible trees in the file.