Decision Tree Writer

This package allows you to train a binary classification decision tree on a list of labeled dictionaries or class instances, and then writes a new .py file with the code for the new decision tree model.

Installation

Simply run py -m pip install decision-tree-writer from the command line (Windows)
or python3 -m pip install decision-tree-writer (Unix/macOS) and you’re ready to go!

Usage

1) Train the model

Use the DecisionTreeWriter class to train a model on a data set and write the code to a new file in a specified fie folder (default folder is the same as your code):

from decision_tree_writer import DecisionTreeWriter

# Here we're using some of the famous iris data set for an example.
# You could alternatively make an Iris class with the same 
# attributes as the keys of each of these dictionaries.
iris_data = [
    { "species": "setosa", "sepal_length": 5.2, "sepal_width": 3.5, 
                            "petal_length": 1.5, "petal_width": 0.2},
    { "species": "setosa", "sepal_length": 5.2, "sepal_width": 4.1, 
                            "petal_length": 1.5, "petal_width": 0.1},
    { "species": "setosa", "sepal_length": 5.4, "sepal_width": 3.7, 
                            "petal_length": 1.5, "petal_width": 0.2},
    { "species": "versicolor", "sepal_length": 6.2, "sepal_width": 2.2, 
                            "petal_length": 4.5, "petal_width": 1.5},
    { "species": "versicolor", "sepal_length": 5.7, "sepal_width": 2.9, 
                            "petal_length": 4.2, "petal_width": 1.3},
    { "species": "versicolor", "sepal_length": 5.6, "sepal_width": 2.9, 
                            "petal_length": 3.6, "petal_width": 1.3},
    { "species": "virginica", "sepal_length": 7.2, "sepal_width": 3.2, 
                            "petal_length": 6.0, "petal_width": 1.8},
    { "species": "virginica", "sepal_length": 6.1, "sepal_width": 2.6, 
                            "petal_length": 5.6, "petal_width": 1.4},
    { "species": "virginica", "sepal_length": 6.8, "sepal_width": 3.0, 
                            "petal_length": 5.5, "petal_width": 2.1}
    ]

# Create the writer. 
# You must specify which attribute or key is the label of the data items.
# You can also specify the max branching depth of the tree (default [and max] is 998)
# or how many data items there must be to make a new branch (default is 1).
writer = DecisionTreeWriter(label_name="species")

# Trains a new model and saves it to a new .py file
writer.create_tree(iris_data, True, "Iris Classifier")

2) Using the new decision tree

In the specified file folder a new python file with one function will appear. It will have the name you gave your decision tree model plus a uuid to ensure it has a unique name. The generated code will look something like this:

from decision_tree_writer.BaseDecisionTree import *

# class-like syntax because it acts like it's instantiating a class.
def IrisClassifier__0c609d3a_741e_4770_8bce_df246bad054d() -> 'BaseDecisionTree':
    """
    IrisClassifier__0c609d3a_741e_4770_8bce_df246bad054d 
    has been trained to identify the species of a given object.
    """
    tree = BaseDecisionTree(None, dict,
            'IrisClassifier__0c609d3a_741e_4770_8bce_df246bad054d')
    tree.root = Branch(lambda x: x['sepal_length'] <= 5.5)
    tree.root.l = Leaf('setosa')
    tree.root.r = Branch(lambda x: x['petal_length'] <= 5.0)
    tree.root.r.l = Leaf('versicolor')
    tree.root.r.r = Leaf('virginica')
    
    return tree

Important note: if you train your model with class instance data you will have to import that class in the new file.
That might look like:

from decision_tree_writer.BaseDecisionTree import *

from wherever import Iris

def IrisClassifier__0c609d3a_741e_4770_8bce_df246bad054d() -> 'BaseDecisionTree':
    tree = BaseDecisionTree(None, Iris, 
                'IrisClassifier__0c609d3a_741e_4770_8bce_df246bad054d')

Now just use the factory function to create an instance of the model.
The model has two important methods, classify_one, which takes a data item of the same type as you trained the model with and returns what it thinks is the correct label for it, and classify_many, which does the same as the first but with a list of data and returns a list of labels.

Example:

tree = IrisClassifier__0c609d3a_741e_4770_8bce_df246bad054d()
print(tree.classify_one(
            { "sepal_length": 5.4, "sepal_width": 3.2, 
                "petal_length": 1.6, "petal_width": 0.3})) # output: 'setosa'

Bugs or questions

If you find any problems with this package of have any questions, please create an issue on this package’s GitHub repo

GitHub

View Github