How to remove the last FC layer from a ResNet model in PyTorch?

Question

I am using a ResNet152 model from PyTorch. I'd like to strip off the last FC layer from the model. Here's my code:

from torchvision import datasets, transforms, models
model = models.resnet152(pretrained=True)
print(model)

When I print the model, the last few lines look like this:

    (2):  Bottleneck(
      (conv1):  Conv2d(2048,  512,  kernel_size=(1,  1),  stride=(1,  1),  bias=False)
      (bn1):  BatchNorm2d(512,  eps=1e-05,  momentum=0.1,  affine=True,  track_running_stats=True)
      (conv2):  Conv2d(512,  512,  kernel_size=(3,  3),  stride=(1,  1),  padding=(1,  1),  bias=False)
      (bn2):  BatchNorm2d(512,  eps=1e-05,  momentum=0.1,  affine=True,  track_running_stats=True)
      (conv3):  Conv2d(512,  2048,  kernel_size=(1,  1),  stride=(1,  1),  bias=False)
      (bn3):  BatchNorm2d(2048,  eps=1e-05,  momentum=0.1,  affine=True,  track_running_stats=True)
      (relu):  ReLU(inplace)
    )
  )
  (avgpool):  AvgPool2d(kernel_size=7,  stride=1,  padding=0)
  (fc):  Linear(in_features=2048,  out_features=1000,  bias=True)
)

I want to remove that last fc layer from the model.

I found an answer here on SO (How to convert pretrained FC layers to CONV layers in Pytorch), where mexmex seems to provide the answer I'm looking for:

list(model.modules()) # to inspect the modules of your model
my_model = nn.Sequential(*list(model.modules())[:-1]) # strips off last linear layer

So I added those lines to my code like this:

model = models.resnet152(pretrained=True)
list(model.modules()) # to inspect the modules of your model
my_model = nn.Sequential(*list(model.modules())[:-1]) # strips off last linear layer
print(my_model)

But this code doesn't work as advertised -- as least not for me. The rest of this post is a detailed explanation of why that answer doesn't work so this question doesn't get closed as a duplicate.

First, the printed model is nearly 5x larger than before. I see the same model as before, but followed by what appears to be a repeat of the model, but perhaps flattened.

    (2): Bottleneck(
      (conv1): Conv2d(2048, 512, kernel_size=(1, 1), stride=(1, 1), bias=False)
      (bn1): BatchNorm2d(512, eps=1e-05, momentum=0.1, affine=True, track_running_stats=True)
      (conv2): Conv2d(512, 512, kernel_size=(3, 3), stride=(1, 1), padding=(1, 1), bias=False)
      (bn2): BatchNorm2d(512, eps=1e-05, momentum=0.1, affine=True, track_running_stats=True)
      (conv3): Conv2d(512, 2048, kernel_size=(1, 1), stride=(1, 1), bias=False)
      (bn3): BatchNorm2d(2048, eps=1e-05, momentum=0.1, affine=True, track_running_stats=True)
      (relu): ReLU(inplace)
    )
  )
  (avgpool): AvgPool2d(kernel_size=7, stride=1, padding=0)
  (fc): Linear(in_features=2048, out_features=1000, bias=True)
)
(1): Conv2d(3, 64, kernel_size=(7, 7), stride=(2, 2), padding=(3, 3), bias=False)
(2): BatchNorm2d(64, eps=1e-05, momentum=0.1, affine=True, track_running_stats=True)
(3): ReLU(inplace)
(4): MaxPool2d(kernel_size=3, stride=2, padding=1, dilation=1, ceil_mode=False)
(5): Sequential(
  . . . this goes on for ~1600 more lines . . .
  (415): BatchNorm2d(512, eps=1e-05, momentum=0.1, affine=True, track_running_stats=True)
  (416): Conv2d(512, 512, kernel_size=(3, 3), stride=(1, 1), padding=(1, 1), bias=False)
  (417): BatchNorm2d(512, eps=1e-05, momentum=0.1, affine=True, track_running_stats=True)
  (418): Conv2d(512, 2048, kernel_size=(1, 1), stride=(1, 1), bias=False)
  (419): BatchNorm2d(2048, eps=1e-05, momentum=0.1, affine=True, track_running_stats=True)
  (420): ReLU(inplace)
  (421): AvgPool2d(kernel_size=7, stride=1, padding=0)
)

Second, the fc layer is still there -- and the Conv2D layer after it looks just like the first layer of ResNet152.

Third, if I try to invoke my_model.forward(), pytorch complains about a size mismatch. It expects size [1, 3, 224, 224], but the input was [1, 1000]. So it looks like a copy of the entire model (minus the fc layer) is getting appended to the original model.

Bottom line, the only answer I found on SO doesn't actually work.

Answer 1

For ResNet model, you can use children attribute to access layers since ResNet model in pytorch consist of nn modules. (Tested on pytorch 0.4.1)

model = models.resnet152(pretrained=True)
newmodel = torch.nn.Sequential(*(list(model.children())[:-1]))
print(newmodel)

Update: Although there is not an universal answer for the question that can work on all pytorch models, it should work on all well structured ones. Existing layers you add to your model (such as torch.nn.Linear, torch.nn.Conv2d, torch.nn.BatchNorm2d...) all based on torch.nn.Module class. And if you implement a custom layer and add that to your network you should inherit it from pytorch's torch.nn.Module class. As written in documentation, children attribute lets you access the modules of your class/model/network.

def children(self):
        r"""Returns an iterator over immediate children modules.  

Update: It is important to note that children() returns "immediate" modules, which means if last module of your network is a sequential, it will return whole sequential.