Learning to rank how to save model - tensorflow

Question

I successfully managed to implement learning to rank by following the tutorial TF-Ranking for sparse features using the ANTIQUE question answering dataset.
Now my goal is to successfully save the learned model to disk so that I can easily load it without training again. Due to the Tensorflow docs, the estimator.export_saved_model() method seems to be the way to go. But I can't wrap my head around how to tell Tensorflow how my feature structure looks like. Due to the docs here the easiest way seems to be calling tf.estimator.export.build_parsing_serving_input_receiver_fn(), which returns me the required inpur receiver function which I have to pass to the export_saved_model function. But how do I tell Tensorflow how my features from my learning to rank model look like?
From my current understanding the model has context feature specs and example feature specs. So I guess I somehow have to combine those two specs into one feature description, which I then can pass to the build_parsing_serving_input_receiver_fn function?

Answer 1

So I think you are on the right track;
You can get a build_ranking_serving_input_receiver_fn like this: (substitue context_feature_columns(...) and example_feature_columns(...) with defs you probably have for creating your own context and example structures for your training data):
def example_serving_input_fn():
context_feature_spec = tf.feature_column.make_parse_example_spec(
context_feature_columns(_VOCAB_PATHS).values())
example_feature_spec = tf.feature_column.make_parse_example_spec(
list(example_feature_columns(_VOCAB_PATHS).values()))
servingInputReceiver = tfr.data.build_ranking_serving_input_receiver_fn(
data_format=tfr.data.ELWC,
context_feature_spec=context_feature_spec,
example_feature_spec=example_feature_spec,
list_size=_LIST_SIZE,
receiver_name="input_ranking_data",
default_batch_size=None)
return servingInputReceiver
And then pass this to export_saved_model like this:
ranker.export_saved_model('path_to_save_model', example_serving_input_fn())
(ranker here is a tf.estimator.Estimator, maybe you called this 'estimator' in your code)
ranker = tf.estimator.Estimator(
model_fn=model_fn,
model_dir=_MODEL_DIR,
config=run_config)