Save Naive Bayes Trained Classifier in NLTK

user179169 picture user179169 · Apr 4, 2012 · Viewed 20.2k times · Source

I'm slightly confused in regard to how I save a trained classifier. As in, re-training a classifier each time I want to use it is obviously really bad and slow, how do I save it and the load it again when I need it? Code is below, thanks in advance for your help. I'm using Python with NLTK Naive Bayes Classifier.

classifier = nltk.NaiveBayesClassifier.train(training_set)
# look inside the classifier train method in the source code of the NLTK library

def train(labeled_featuresets, estimator=nltk.probability.ELEProbDist):
    # Create the P(label) distribution
    label_probdist = estimator(label_freqdist)
    # Create the P(fval|label, fname) distribution
    feature_probdist = {}
    return NaiveBayesClassifier(label_probdist, feature_probdist)

Answer

Jacob picture Jacob · Apr 5, 2012

To save:

import pickle
f = open('my_classifier.pickle', 'wb')
pickle.dump(classifier, f)
f.close()

To load later:

import pickle
f = open('my_classifier.pickle', 'rb')
classifier = pickle.load(f)
f.close()