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I'm trying to compute the gradient of the output layer with respect to the input layer. My neural network is relatively small (input layer composed of 9 activation units and the output layer of 1) and the training went fine as the test provided a very good accuracy. I made the NN model using Keras.
In order to solve my problem, I need to compute the gradient of the output with respect to the input. This is, I need to obtain the Jacobian which as dimension [1x9]. The gradients function in tensorflow should provide me with everything I need, but when I run the code below I obtain a different solution every time.
output_v = model.output
input_v = model.input
gradients = tf.gradients(output_v, input_v)
sess = tf.Session()
sess.run(tf.initialize_all_variables())
print(sess.run(model.input,feed_dict={model.input:x_test_N[0:1,:]}))
evaluated_gradients = sess.run(gradients,feed_dict{model.input:x_test_N[0:1,:]})
print(evaluated_gradients)
sess.close()
The first print command shows this value every time I run it (just to make sure that the input values are not modified):
[[-1.4306372 -0.1272892 0.7145787 1.338818 -1.2957293 -0.5402862-0.7771702 -0.5787912 -0.9157122]]
But the second print shows different ones:
[[ 0.00175761, -0.0490326 , -0.05413761, 0.09952173, 0.06112418, -0.04772799, 0.06557006, -0.02473242, 0.05542536]]
[[-0.00416433, 0.08235116, -0.00930298, 0.04440641, 0.03752216, 0.06378302, 0.03508484, -0.01903783, -0.0538374 ]]
Using finite differences, evaluated_gradients[0,0] = 0.03565103, which isn't close to any of the first values previously printed.
Thanks for your time!
Alberto
Solved by creating a specific session just before training my model:
sess = tf.Session()
sess.run(tf.global_variables_initializer())
K.set_session(sess)
history = model.fit(x_train_N, y_train_N, epochs=n_epochs,
validation_split=split, verbose=1, batch_size=n_batch_size,
shuffle='true', callbacks=[early_stop, tensorboard])
And evaluating the gradient after training, while tf.session is still open:
evaluated_gradients = sess.run(K.gradients(model.output, model.input), feed_dict={model.input: x_test_N})
Presumably your network is set up to initialize weights to random values. When you run sess.run(tf.initialize_all_variables()), you are initializing your variables to new random values. Therefore you get different values for output_v in every run, and hence different gradients. If you want to use a model you trained before, you should replace the initialization with initialize_all_variables() with a restore command. I am not familiar with how this is done in Keras since I usually work directly with tensorflow, but I would try this.
Also note that initialize_all_variables is deprecated and you should use global_variables_initializer instead.
I'm working with tf.data.dataset/iterator mechanism and trying to improve data loading performance. It occurred to me that offloading the entire minibatch loop from Python might help. My data is small enough that storing on CPU or GPU is no problem.
So, Is it possible to loop an optimizer node over a full minibatched epoch within a call to session.run?
The tensor returned by iterator.get_next() is only incremented once per session.run, which would seems to make it impossible to iterate through a dataset of minibatches... but if it could be done, my CPU would only have to touch the Python thread once per epoch.
UPDATE: #muskrat's suggestion to use tf.slice can be used for this purpose. See my subsequent non-answer with a schematic implementation of this using tf.while_loop. However, the question is whether this can be accomplished using dataset/iterators... and I'd still like to know.
From the description it seems that you already have the dataset preloaded as a constant on CPU/GPU, like at this example. That's certainly the first step.
Second, I suggest using tf.slice() to replicate the effect of the minibatch operation. In other words, just manually slice minibatches out of the preloaded constant (your dataset), and you should get the desired behavior. See for example the slice docs or this related post.
If that's not enough detail, please edit your question to include a code example (with mnist or something) and I can give more details.
This "answer" is an implementation of muskrat's tf.slice suggestion with the details of tf.while_loop worked out (with help from How to use tf.while_loop() in tensorflow and https://www.tensorflow.org/api_docs/python/tf/while_loop).
Unless your data and model are small enough that you're bottlenecked by Python I/O (like me!), this solution is probably academic.
Advantages:
Trains over minibatches without returning to the Python thread.
Uses only ops that have GPU implementations meaning that the entire graph can be placed in the GPU.
On my small dataset, which is presumably bottlenecked by Python I/O, this solution is twice the speed of my dataset/iteratior (which touches Python once per minibatch) and four times the speed of passing minibatches through feed_dict.
Disadvantages:
tf.while_loop is treacherous. It's challenging to understand when ops inside the loop's body are evaluated and when those they depend on are evaluated, particularly the (thin) official documentation and limited Stack Overflow coverage.
The missing documentation of tf.while_loop is that tensors outside the body of the loop are only evaluated once, even if inner ops depend on them. This means that optimization, model, and loss have to be defined in the loop. This limits flexibility if you'd like to e.g. be able to call validation loss ops between training epochs. Presumably this could be accomplished with tf.cond statements and the appropriate flags passed in via feed_dict. But not nearly as flexible or elegant as the dataset/iterator mechanism in tf.data.
Adding shuffling operations at each Epoch doesn't seem available on GPU.
Here's my schematic code (I've ommitted the variable and model definition for brevity):
def buildModel(info, training_data, training_targets):
graph = tf.Graph()
with graph.as_default():
# numBatches is passed in from Python once per Epoch.
batch_size = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, name = 'batch_size')
# Initializers for loop variables for tf.while_loop
batchCounter = tf.Variable(0, dtype=tf.float32, trainable=False)
lossList = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([0,1]), trainable=False)
# In a full example, I'd normalize my data here. And possibly shuffle
tf_training_data = tf.constant(training_data, dtype=tf.float32)
tf_training_targets = tf.constant(training_targets, dtype=tf.float32)
# For brevity, I'll spare the definitions of my variables. Because tf.Variables
# are essentially treated as globals in the model and are manipulated directly (like with tf.apply)
# they can reside outside runMinibatch, the body of tf.while_loop.
# weights_1 =
# biases_1 =
# etc.
def moreMinibatches(batchCount, lossList):
return (batchCount + 1) * batch_size <= len(training_data)
def runMinibatch(batchCount, lossList):
# These tensors and ops have to be defined inside runMinibatch, otherwise they're not updated as tf.wile_loop loops. This means
# slices, model definition, loss tensor, and training op.
dat_batch = tf.slice(tf_training_data, [tf.cast(batchCounter * batch_size, tf.int32) , 0], [tf.cast(batch_size, tf.int32), -1])
targ_batch = tf.slice(tf_training_targets, [tf.cast(batchCounter * batch_size, tf.int32) , 0], [tf.cast(batch_size, tf.int32), -1])
# Here's where you'd define the model as a function of weights and biases above and dat_batch
# model = <insert here>
loss = tf.reduce_mean(tf.squared_difference(model, targ_batch))
optimizer = tf.train.AdagradOptimizer() # for example
train_op = optimizer.minimize(while_loss, name='optimizer')
# control_dependences ensures that train_op is run before return
# even though the return values don't explicitly depend on it.
with tf.control_dependencies([train_op]):
return batchCount + 1, tf.concat([lossList, [[while_loss]]],0)
# So, the idea is that this trains a full epoch without returning to Python.
trainMinibatches = tf.while_loop(moreMinibatches, runMinibatch, [minibatchCounter, lossList]
shape_invariants=[batchCounter.get_shape(), tf.TensorShape(None)])
return (graph,
{'trainMinibatches' : trainAllMinibatches,
'minibatchCounter' : minibatchCounter,
'norm_loss' : norm_loss,
} )
numEpochs = 100 # e.g.
minibatchSize = 32 #
# training_dataset = <data here>
# training_targets = <targets here>
graph, ops = buildModel(info, training_dataset, training_targets,
minibatch_size)
with tf.Session(graph=graph, config=config) as session:
tf.global_variables_initializer().run()
for i in range(numEpochs):
# This op will train on as all minibatches that fit in the full dataset. finalBatchCount with be the number of
# complete minibatches in the dataset. lossList is a list of each step's minibatches.
finalBatchCount, lossList = session.run(ops['trainAllMinibatches'],
feed_dict={'batch_size:0':minibatchSize})
print('minibatch losses at Epoch', i, ': ', lossList)
I implemented tf.slice() and tf.while_loop approach to vectorize mini-batch suggested above.
The performance was about 1.86 times faster in my case than the mini-batches using feed_dict, but I found there was a problem that the loss values of each epochs were not stabilized.
Then, I changed to tf.random_shuffle the inputs every epoch, the problem was much mitigated. (the performance gain was reduced to 1.68 times)
I have a TensorFlow CNN model that is performing well and we would like to implement this model in hardware; i.e., an FPGA. It's a relatively small network but it would be ideal if it were smaller. With that goal, I've examined the kernels and find that there are some where the weights are quite strong and there are others that aren't doing much at all (the kernel values are all close to zero). This occurs specifically in layer 2, corresponding to the tf.Variable() named, "W_conv2". W_conv2 has shape [3, 3, 32, 32]. I would like to freeze/lock the values of W_conv2[:, :, 29, 13] and set them to zero so that the rest of the network can be trained to compensate. Setting the values of this kernel to zero effectively removes/prunes the kernel from the hardware implementation thus achieving the goal stated above.
I have found similar questions with suggestions that generally revolve around one of two approaches;
Suggestion #1:
tf.Variable(some_initial_value, trainable = False)
Implementing this suggestion freezes the entire variable. I want to freeze just a slice, specifically W_conv2[:, :, 29, 13].
Suggestion #2:
Optimizer = tf.train.RMSPropOptimizer(0.001).minimize(loss, var_list)
Again, implementing this suggestion does not allow the use of slices. For instance, if I try the inverse of my stated goal (optimize only a single kernel of a single variable) as follows:
Optimizer = tf.train.RMSPropOptimizer(0.001).minimize(loss, var_list = W_conv2[:,:,0,0]))
I get the following error:
NotImplementedError: ('Trying to optimize unsupported type ', <tf.Tensor 'strided_slice_2228:0' shape=(3, 3) dtype=float32>)
Slicing tf.Variables() isn't possible in the way that I've tried it here. The only thing that I've tried which comes close to doing what I want is using .assign() but this is extremely inefficient, cumbersome, and caveman-like as I've implemented it as follows (after the model is trained):
for _ in range(10000):
# get a new batch of data
# reset the values of W_conv2[:,:,29,13]=0 each time through
for m in range(3):
for n in range(3):
assign_op = W_conv2[m,n,29,13].assign(0)
sess.run(assign_op)
# re-train the rest of the network
_, loss_val = sess.run([optimizer, loss], feed_dict = {
dict_stuff_here
})
print(loss_val)
The model was started in Keras then moved to TensorFlow since Keras didn't seem to have a mechanism to achieve the desired results. I'm starting to think that TensorFlow doesn't allow for pruning but find this hard to believe; it just needs the correct implementation.
A possible approach is to initialize these specific weights with zeros, and modify the minimization process such that gradients won't be applied to them. It can be done by replacing the call to minimize() with something like:
W_conv2_weights = np.ones((3, 3, 32, 32))
W_conv2_weights[:, :, 29, 13] = 0
W_conv2_weights_const = tf.constant(W_conv2_weights)
optimizer = tf.train.RMSPropOptimizer(0.001)
W_conv2_orig_grads = tf.gradients(loss, W_conv2)
W_conv2_grads = tf.multiply(W_conv2_weights_const, W_conv2_orig_grads)
W_conv2_train_op = optimizer.apply_gradients(zip(W_conv2_grads, W_conv2))
rest_grads = tf.gradients(loss, rest_of_vars)
rest_train_op = optimizer.apply_gradients(zip(rest_grads, rest_of_vars))
tf.group([rest_train_op, W_conv2_train_op])
I.e,
Preparing a constant Tensor for canceling the appropriate gradients
Compute gradients only for W_conv2, then multiply element-wise with the constant W_conv2_weights to zero the appropriate gradients and only then apply gradients.
Compute and apply gradients "normally" to the rest of the variables.
Group the 2 train ops to a single training op.
I'm making my first steps learning TF and have some trouble training RNNs.
My toy problem goes like this: a two layers LSTM + dense layer network is fed with raw audio data and should test whether a certain frequency is present in the sound.
so the network should 1 to 1 map float(audio data sequence) to float(pre-chosen frequency volume)
I've got this to work on Keras and seen a similar TFLearn solution but would like to implement this on bare Tensorflow in a relatively efficient way.
what i've done:
lstm = rnn_cell.BasicLSTMCell(LSTM_SIZE,state_is_tuple=True,forget_bias=1.0)
lstm = rnn_cell.DropoutWrapper(lstm)
stacked_lstm = rnn_cell.MultiRNNCell([lstm] * 2,state_is_tuple=True)
outputs, states = rnn.dynamic_rnn(stacked_lstm, in, dtype=tf.float32)
outputs = tf.transpose(outputs, [1, 0, 2])
last = tf.gather(outputs, int(outputs.get_shape()[0]) - 1)
network= tf.matmul(last, W) + b
# cost function, optimizer etc...
during training I fed this with (BATCH_SIZE, SEQUENCE_LEN,1) batches and it seems like the loss converged correctly but I can't figure out how to predict with the trained network.
My (awful lot of) questions:
how do i make this network return a sequence right from Tensorflow without going back to python for each sample(feed a sequence and predict a sequence of the same size)?
If I do want to predict one sample at a time and iterate in python what is the correct way to do it?
During testing is dynamic_rnn needed or it's just used for unrolling for BPTT during training? why is dynamic_rnn returning all the back propagation steps Tensors? these are the outputs of each layer of the unrolled network right?
after some research:
how do i make this network return a sequence right from Tensorflow
without going back to python for each sample(feed a sequence and
predict a sequence of the same size)?
you can use state_saving_rnn
class Saver():
def __init__(self):
self.d = {}
def state(self, name):
if not name in self.d:
return tf.zeros([1,LSTM_SIZE],tf.float32)
return self.d[name]
def save_state(self, name, val):
self.d[name] = val
return tf.identity('save_state_name') #<-important for control_dependencies
outputs, states = rnn.state_saving_rnn(stacked_lstm, inx, Saver(),
('lstmstate', 'lstmstate2', 'lstmstate3', 'lstmstate4'),sequence_length=[EVAL_SEQ_LEN])
#4 states are for two layers of lstm each has hidden and CEC variables to restore
network = [tf.matmul(outputs[-1], W) for i in xrange(EVAL_SEQ_LEN)]
one problem is that state_saving_rnn is using rnn() and not dynamic_rnn() therefore unroll at compile time EVAL_SEQ_LEN steps you might want to re-implement state_saving_rnn with dynamic_rnn if you want to input long sequences
If I do want to predict one sample at a time and iterate in python what is the correct way to do it?
you can use dynamic_rnn and supply initial_state. this is probably just as efficient as state_saving_rnn. look at state_saving_rnn implementations for reference
During testing is dynamic_rnn needed or it's just used for unrolling for BPTT during training? why is dynamic_rnn returning all the back propagation steps Tensors? these are the outputs of each layer of the unrolled network right?
dynamic_rnn does do unrolling at runtime similarly to compile time rnn(). I guess it returns all the steps for you to branch the graph in some other places - after less time steps. in a network that use [one time step input * current state -> one output, new state] like the one described above it's not needed in testing but could be used for training truncated time back propagation
I'm a newbie to TensorFlow. I'm confused about the difference between tf.placeholder and tf.Variable. In my view, tf.placeholder is used for input data, and tf.Variable is used to store the state of data. This is all what I know.
Could someone explain to me more in detail about their differences? In particular, when to use tf.Variable and when to use tf.placeholder?
In short, you use tf.Variable for trainable variables such as weights (W) and biases (B) for your model.
weights = tf.Variable(
tf.truncated_normal([IMAGE_PIXELS, hidden1_units],
stddev=1.0 / math.sqrt(float(IMAGE_PIXELS))), name='weights')
biases = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([hidden1_units]), name='biases')
tf.placeholder is used to feed actual training examples.
images_placeholder = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, shape=(batch_size, IMAGE_PIXELS))
labels_placeholder = tf.placeholder(tf.int32, shape=(batch_size))
This is how you feed the training examples during the training:
for step in xrange(FLAGS.max_steps):
feed_dict = {
images_placeholder: images_feed,
labels_placeholder: labels_feed,
}
_, loss_value = sess.run([train_op, loss], feed_dict=feed_dict)
Your tf.variables will be trained (modified) as the result of this training.
See more at https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r0.7/tutorials/mnist/tf/index.html. (Examples are taken from the web page.)
The difference is that with tf.Variable you have to provide an initial value when you declare it. With tf.placeholder you don't have to provide an initial value and you can specify it at run time with the feed_dict argument inside Session.run
Since Tensor computations compose of graphs then it's better to interpret the two in terms of graphs.
Take for example the simple linear regression
WX+B=Y
where W and B stand for the weights and bias and X for the observations' inputs and Y for the observations' outputs.
Obviously X and Y are of the same nature (manifest variables) which differ from that of W and B (latent variables). X and Y are values of the samples (observations) and hence need a place to be filled, while W and B are the weights and bias, Variables (the previous values affect the latter) in the graph which should be trained using different X and Y pairs. We place different samples to the Placeholders to train the Variables.
We only need to save or restore the Variables (at checkpoints) to save or rebuild the graph with the code.
Placeholders are mostly holders for the different datasets (for example training data or test data). However, Variables are trained in the training process for the specific tasks, i.e., to predict the outcome of the input or map the inputs to the desired labels. They remain the same until you retrain or fine-tune the model using different or the same samples to fill into the Placeholders often through the dict. For instance:
session.run(a_graph, dict = {a_placeholder_name : sample_values})
Placeholders are also passed as parameters to set models.
If you change placeholders (add, delete, change the shape etc) of a model in the middle of training, you can still reload the checkpoint without any other modifications. But if the variables of a saved model are changed, you should adjust the checkpoint accordingly to reload it and continue the training (all variables defined in the graph should be available in the checkpoint).
To sum up, if the values are from the samples (observations you already have) you safely make a placeholder to hold them, while if you need a parameter to be trained harness a Variable (simply put, set the Variables for the values you want to get using TF automatically).
In some interesting models, like a style transfer model, the input pixes are going to be optimized and the normally-called model variables are fixed, then we should make the input (usually initialized randomly) as a variable as implemented in that link.
For more information please infer to this simple and illustrating doc.
TL;DR
Variables
For parameters to learn
Values can be derived from training
Initial values are required (often random)
Placeholders
Allocated storage for data (such as for image pixel data during a feed)
Initial values are not required (but can be set, see tf.placeholder_with_default)
The most obvious difference between the tf.Variable and the tf.placeholder is that
you use variables to hold and update parameters. Variables are
in-memory buffers containing tensors. They must be explicitly
initialized and can be saved to disk during and after training. You
can later restore saved values to exercise or analyze the model.
Initialization of the variables is done with sess.run(tf.global_variables_initializer()). Also while creating a variable, you need to pass a Tensor as its initial value to the Variable() constructor and when you create a variable you always know its shape.
On the other hand, you can't update the placeholder. They also should not be initialized, but because they are a promise to have a tensor, you need to feed the value into them sess.run(<op>, {a: <some_val>}). And at last, in comparison to a variable, placeholder might not know the shape. You can either provide parts of the dimensions or provide nothing at all.
There other differences:
the values inside the variable can be updated during optimizations
variables can be shared, and can be non-trainable
the values inside the variable can be stored after training
when the variable is created, 3 ops are added to a graph (variable op, initializer op, ops for the initial value)
placeholder is a function, Variable is a class (hence an uppercase)
when you use TF in a distributed environment, variables are stored in a special place (parameter server) and are shared between the workers.
Interesting part is that not only placeholders can be fed. You can feed the value to a Variable and even to a constant.
Adding to other's answers, they also explain it very well in this MNIST tutorial on Tensoflow website:
We describe these interacting operations by manipulating symbolic
variables. Let's create one:
x = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, [None, 784]),
x isn't a specific value. It's a placeholder, a value that we'll input when we ask TensorFlow to
run a computation. We want to be able to input any number of MNIST
images, each flattened into a 784-dimensional vector. We represent
this as a 2-D tensor of floating-point numbers, with a shape [None,
784]. (Here None means that a dimension can be of any length.)
We also need the weights and biases for our model. We could imagine
treating these like additional inputs, but TensorFlow has an even
better way to handle it: Variable. A Variable is a modifiable tensor
that lives in TensorFlow's graph of interacting operations. It can be
used and even modified by the computation. For machine learning
applications, one generally has the model parameters be Variables.
W = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([784, 10]))
b = tf.Variable(tf.zeros([10]))
We create these Variables by giving tf.Variable the initial value of
the Variable: in this case, we initialize both W and b as tensors full
of zeros. Since we are going to learn W and b, it doesn't matter very
much what they initially are.
Tensorflow uses three types of containers to store/execute the process
Constants :Constants holds the typical data.
variables: Data values will be changed, with respective the functions such as cost_function..
placeholders: Training/Testing data will be passed in to the graph.
Example snippet:
import numpy as np
import tensorflow as tf
### Model parameters ###
W = tf.Variable([.3], tf.float32)
b = tf.Variable([-.3], tf.float32)
### Model input and output ###
x = tf.placeholder(tf.float32)
linear_model = W * x + b
y = tf.placeholder(tf.float32)
### loss ###
loss = tf.reduce_sum(tf.square(linear_model - y)) # sum of the squares
### optimizer ###
optimizer = tf.train.GradientDescentOptimizer(0.01)
train = optimizer.minimize(loss)
### training data ###
x_train = [1,2,3,4]
y_train = [0,-1,-2,-3]
### training loop ###
init = tf.global_variables_initializer()
sess = tf.Session()
sess.run(init) # reset values to wrong
for i in range(1000):
sess.run(train, {x:x_train, y:y_train})
As the name say placeholder is a promise to provide a value later i.e.
Variable are simply the training parameters (W(matrix), b(bias) same as the normal variables you use in your day to day programming, which the trainer updates/modify on each run/step.
While placeholder doesn't require any initial value, that when you created x and y TF doesn't allocated any memory, instead later when you feed the placeholders in the sess.run() using feed_dict, TensorFlow will allocate the appropriately sized memory for them (x and y) - this unconstrained-ness allows us to feed any size and shape of data.
In nutshell:
Variable - is a parameter you want trainer (i.e. GradientDescentOptimizer) to update after each step.
Placeholder demo -
a = tf.placeholder(tf.float32)
b = tf.placeholder(tf.float32)
adder_node = a + b # + provides a shortcut for tf.add(a, b)
Execution:
print(sess.run(adder_node, {a: 3, b:4.5}))
print(sess.run(adder_node, {a: [1,3], b: [2, 4]}))
resulting in the output
7.5
[ 3. 7.]
In the first case 3 and 4.5 will be passed to a and b respectively, and then to adder_node ouputting 7. In second case there's a feed list, first step 1 and 2 will be added, next 3 and 4 (a and b).
Relevant reads:
tf.placeholder doc.
tf.Variable doc.
Variable VS placeholder.
Variables
A TensorFlow variable is the best way to represent shared, persistent state manipulated by your program. Variables are manipulated via the tf.Variable class. Internally, a tf.Variable stores a persistent tensor. Specific operations allow you to read and modify the values of this tensor. These modifications are visible across multiple tf.Sessions, so multiple workers can see the same values for a tf.Variable. Variables must be initialized before using.
Example:
x = tf.Variable(3, name="x")
y = tf.Variable(4, name="y")
f = x*x*y + y + 2
This creates a computation graph. The variables (x and y) can be initialized and the function (f) evaluated in a tensorflow session as follows:
with tf.Session() as sess:
x.initializer.run()
y.initializer.run()
result = f.eval()
print(result)
42
Placeholders
A placeholder is a node (same as a variable) whose value can be initialized in the future. These nodes basically output the value assigned to them during runtime. A placeholder node can be assigned using the tf.placeholder() class to which you can provide arguments such as type of the variable and/or its shape. Placeholders are extensively used for representing the training dataset in a machine learning model as the training dataset keeps changing.
Example:
A = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, shape=(None, 3))
B = A + 5
Note: 'None' for a dimension means 'any size'.
with tf.Session as sess:
B_val_1 = B.eval(feed_dict={A: [[1, 2, 3]]})
B_val_2 = B.eval(feed_dict={A: [[4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9]]})
print(B_val_1)
[[6. 7. 8.]]
print(B_val_2)
[[9. 10. 11.]
[12. 13. 14.]]
References:
https://www.tensorflow.org/guide/variables
https://www.tensorflow.org/api_docs/python/tf/placeholder
O'Reilly: Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn & Tensorflow
Think of Variable in tensorflow as a normal variables which we use in programming languages. We initialize variables, we can modify it later as well. Whereas placeholder doesn’t require initial value. Placeholder simply allocates block of memory for future use. Later, we can use feed_dict to feed the data into placeholder. By default, placeholder has an unconstrained shape, which allows you to feed tensors of different shapes in a session. You can make constrained shape by passing optional argument -shape, as I have done below.
x = tf.placeholder(tf.float32,(3,4))
y = x + 2
sess = tf.Session()
print(sess.run(y)) # will cause an error
s = np.random.rand(3,4)
print(sess.run(y, feed_dict={x:s}))
While doing Machine Learning task, most of the time we are unaware of number of rows but (let’s assume) we do know the number of features or columns. In that case, we can use None.
x = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, shape=(None,4))
Now, at run time we can feed any matrix with 4 columns and any number of rows.
Also, Placeholders are used for input data ( they are kind of variables which we use to feed our model), where as Variables are parameters such as weights that we train over time.
Placeholder :
A placeholder is simply a variable that we will assign data to at a later date. It allows us to create our operations and build our computation graph, without needing the data. In TensorFlow terminology, we then feed data into the graph through these placeholders.
Initial values are not required but can have default values with tf.placeholder_with_default)
We have to provide value at runtime like :
a = tf.placeholder(tf.int16) // initialize placeholder value
b = tf.placeholder(tf.int16) // initialize placeholder value
use it using session like :
sess.run(add, feed_dict={a: 2, b: 3}) // this value we have to assign at runtime
Variable :
A TensorFlow variable is the best way to represent shared,
persistent state manipulated by your program.
Variables are manipulated via the tf.Variable class. A tf.Variable
represents a tensor whose value can be changed by running ops on it.
Example : tf.Variable("Welcome to tensorflow!!!")
Tensorflow 2.0 Compatible Answer: The concept of Placeholders, tf.placeholder will not be available in Tensorflow 2.x (>= 2.0) by default, as the Default Execution Mode is Eager Execution.
However, we can use them if used in Graph Mode (Disable Eager Execution).
Equivalent command for TF Placeholder in version 2.x is tf.compat.v1.placeholder.
Equivalent Command for TF Variable in version 2.x is tf.Variable and if you want to migrate the code from 1.x to 2.x, the equivalent command is
tf.compat.v2.Variable.
Please refer this Tensorflow Page for more information about Tensorflow Version 2.0.
Please refer the Migration Guide for more information about migration from versions 1.x to 2.x.
Think of a computation graph. In such graph, we need an input node to pass our data to the graph, those nodes should be defined as Placeholder in tensorflow.
Do not think as a general program in Python. You can write a Python program and do all those stuff that guys explained in other answers just by Variables, but for computation graphs in tensorflow, to feed your data to the graph, you need to define those nods as Placeholders.
For TF V1:
Constant is with initial value and it won't change in the computation;
Variable is with initial value and it can change in the computation; (so good for parameters)
Placeholder is without initial value and it won't change in the computation. (so good for inputs like prediction instances)
For TF V2, same but they try to hide Placeholder (graph mode is not preferred).
In TensorFlow, a variable is just another tensor (like tf.constant or tf.placeholder). It just so happens that variables can be modified by the computation. tf.placeholder is used for inputs that will be provided externally to the computation at run-time (e.g. training data). tf.Variable is used for inputs that are part of the computation and are going to be modified by the computation (e.g. weights of a neural network).