Exp No: 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEKA 1

Roll Number: Ur num here

LAUNCHING WEKA:

WEKA  Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis

The WEKA GUI Chooser provides a starting point for launching WEKA’S main GUI applications
and supporting tools. The GUI Chooser consists of four buttons—one for each of the four major Weka
applications—and four menus.
The buttons can be used to start the following applications:
1. Explorer: An environment for exploring data with WEKA.
2. Experimenter: An environment for performing experiments and conducting statistical
tests between learning schemes.
3. Knowledge Flow: It supports essentially the same functions as the explorer but with a
drag and drop interface. One advantage is that it supports incremental learning.
4. Simple CLI: Provides a simple command-line interface that allows direct execution of
WEKA commands for operating systems that do not provide their own command line interface.

The menu consists of four sections like Program, Tools, Visualization, and Help.
EXPLORER:
It is a user interface which contains a group of tabs just below the title bar. The tabs are as
follows:
1. Preprocess
2. Classify
3. Cluster
4. Associate
5. Select Attributes
6. Visualize
The bottom of the window contains status box, log and WEKA bird.
1. PREPROCESSING:

Software Lab-II(DWH) Dept. of CSE

Exp No: 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEKA 2
Roll Number: Ur num here

LOADING DATA
The first four buttons at the top of the preprocess section enable you to load
Data into WEKA:
1. Open file: It shows a dialog box allowing you to browse for the data file on the local file
system.
2. Open URL: Asks for a Uniform Resource Locator address for where the data is stored.
3. Open DB: Reads data from a database.
4. Generate: It is used to generate artificial data from a variety of Data Generators.

Using the Open file button we can read files in a variety of formats like WEKA’s ARFF
format, CSV format. Typically ARFF files have .arff extension and CSV files .csv extension.
THE CURRENT RELATION
The Current relation box contains the currently loaded data i.e. interpreted as a single
relational table in database terminology, which has three entries:
1. Relation: It provides the name of the relation in the file from which it was loaded.
Filters are used modify the name of a relation.
2. Instances: The number of instances (data points/records) in the data.
3. Attributes: The number of attributes (features) in the data.
ATTRIBUTES
It is located below the current relation box which contains four buttons, they are:
1) All is used to tick all boxes 2) None is used to clear all boxes 3) Invert is used make ticked
boxes unticked. 4) Pattern is used to select attributes by representing an expression. E.g. a.* is
used to select all the attributes that begins with a.
SELECTED ATTRIBUTE:
It is located beside the current relation box which contains the following:
1. Name: It specifies the name of the attribute i.e. same as in the attribute list.
2. Type: It specifies the type of attribute, most commonly Nominal or Numeric.

Software Lab-II(DWH) Dept. of CSE

Exp No: 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEKA 3
Roll Number: Ur num here

3. Missing: It provides a numeric value of instances in the data for which an attribute is missing.
4. Distinct: It provides the number of different values that the data contains for an attribute.
5. Unique: it provides the number of instances in the data having a value for an attribute that no
other instances have.
FILTERS
By clicking the Choose button at the left of the Filter box, it is possible to select one of
the filters in WEKA. Once a filter has been selected, its name and options are shown in the field
next to the Choose button, by clicking on this box with the left mouse button it shows a
GenericObjectEditor dialog box which is used to configure the filter.

2. CLASSIFICATION

Classification has a text box which gives the name of currently selected classifier, and
its options. By clicking it with the left mouse button it shows a GenericObjectEditor dialog box,
which is same as for filters i.e. used to configure the current classifier options.
TEST OPTIONS
The result of applying the chosen classifier will be tested according to the options that
are set by clicking in the Test options box. There are four test modes:
1. Use training set.
2. Supplied test set.
3. Cross-validation.
4. Percentage split.

Once the classifier, test options and class have all been set, the learning process is
started by clicking on the Start button. We can stop the training process at any time by clicking
on the Stop button.
The Classifier output area to the right of the display is filled with text describing the
results of training and testing.

Software Lab-II(DWH) Dept. of CSE

Exp No: 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEKA 4
Roll Number: Ur num here

After training several classifiers, the Result List will contain several entries using which
we can move over various results that have been generated. By pressing Delete we can
remove a selected entry from the results.

3. CLUSTERING

By clicking the text box beside the choose button in the Clusterer box, it shows a dialog
box used to choose a new clustering scheme.
The Cluster mode box is used to choose what to cluster and how to evaluate the
results. The first three options in it are same as in classification like Use training set,
Supplied test set and Percentage split. The fourth option is classes to clusters evaluation
An additional option in the Cluster mode box is the Store clusters for visualization
which finds whether or not it will be possible to visualize the clusters once training is
complete.
Ignore Attributes: when clustering, some attributes in the data should be ignored. It
shows a small window that allows you to select which attributes are ignored.
4. ASSOCIATING

Software Lab-II(DWH) Dept. of CSE

Exp No: 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEKA 5
Roll Number: Ur num here

It contains schemes for learning association rules, and the learners are chosen and
configured in the same way as the clusterer, filters, and classifiers in the other panels.
5. SELECTING ATTRIBUTES

Attribute selection involves searching through all possible combinations of attributes in the
data to find which subset of attributes works best for prediction. To do this, two objects must be set
up: an attribute evaluator and a search method. The evaluator determines what method is used to
assign a worth to each subset of attributes. The search method determines what style of search is
performed.
The Attribute Selection Mode box has two options:
1. Use full training set: The worth of the attribute subset is determined using the full set of
training data.
2. Cross-validation: The worth of the attribute subset is determined by a process of cross-
validation. The Fold and Seed fields set the number of folds to use and the random seed used when
shuffling the data.
6. VISUALIZING

WEKA’s visualization section allows you to visualize 2D plots of the current relation.

Software Lab-II(DWH) Dept. of CSE

Exp No: 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEKA 6
Roll Number: Ur num here

EXPERIMENTER: The Weka Experiment Environment enables the user to create, run, modify, and
analyses experiments in a more convenient manner. It can also be run from the command line using
the Simple CLI.
New Experiment:
After clicking on new default parameters for an Experiment are defined.
We can choose the experiment in two different modes 1) Simple and 2) Advanced

Result Destination:
By default, an ARFF file is the destination for the results output. But we can also choose
CSV file as the destination for output file. The advantage of ARFF or CSV files is that they can
be created without any additional classes. The drawback is the lack of ability to resume the
interrupted experiment.
Experiment type:
The user can choose between the following three different types:
1. Cross-validation: it is a default type and it performs stratified cross-validation
with the given number of folds.
2. Train/Test Percentage Split: it splits a dataset according to the given percentage
into a train and a test file after the order of the data has been randomized and stratified.
3. Train/Test Percentage Split: As it is impossible to specify an explicit train/test
files pair, one can abuse this type to un-merge previously merged train and test file into the
two original files.
Additionally, one can choose between Classification and Regression, depending on the
datasets and classifiers one uses.
Data Sets:
One can add dataset files either with an absolute path or with a relative path.
Iteration control:
1. Number of repetitions: In order to get statistically meaningful results, the default number
of iterations is 10.

Software Lab-II(DWH) Dept. of CSE

Exp No: 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEKA 7
Roll Number: Ur num here

2. Data sets first/Algorithms first: As soon as one has more than one dataset and algorithm, it
can be useful to switch from datasets being iterated over first to algorithms.
Algorithms: New algorithms can be added via the “Add New” button.
Opening this dialog for the first time, ZeroR is presented.

By clicking on the Choose button one can choose another classifier which is as shown in
the below diagram:

The “Filter...” button enables us to highlight classifiers that can handle certain
attributes and class types. With “Remove Filter” button one can clear the classifiers that are
highlighted earlier.

Software Lab-II(DWH) Dept. of CSE

Exp No: 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEKA 8
Roll Number: Ur num here

With the Load options... and Save options... buttons one can load and save the setup of
a selected classifier from and to XML.
Running an Experiment:
To run the current experiment, click the Run tab at the top of the Experiment Environment
window. The current experiment performs 10 runs of 10-fold stratified cross-validation.

After clicking the Run tab, it shows a window with start button and stop button, by clicking on
start button we can run the experiment and by clicking on stop button we can run the experiment.

Software Lab-II(DWH) Dept. of CSE

Exp No: 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEKA 9
Roll Number: Ur num here

If the experiment was defined correctly, the 3 messages shown above will be displayed in the
Log panel.
Advanced
Defining an experiment: When the Experimenter is started in Advanced mode, the Setup tab is
displayed. Now click New to initialize an experiment.

To define the dataset to be processed by a scheme, first select Use relative paths in the
Datasets panel of the Setup tab and then click on Add new... button.
Saving Results of the experiment
To identify a dataset to which the results are to be sent, click on the Instances- ResultListener
entry in the Destination panel, which opens a dialog box with a label named as “output file”.

Software Lab-II(DWH) Dept. of CSE

Exp No: 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEKA 10
Roll Number: Ur num here

Now give the name of the output file and click on OK button. The dataset name is now
displayed in the Datasets panel of the Setup tab. This is as shown in the following figure:

Now we can run the experiment by clicking the Run tab at the top of the experiment
environment window. The current experiment performs 10 randomized train and test runs.
To change from random train and test experiments to cross-validation experiments, click on
the Result generator entry.
Using analysis tab in experiment environment window one can analyze the results of experiments
using experiment analyzer.

KNOWLEDGE FLOW:
The Knowledge Flow provides an alternative to the Explorer as a graphical front end to WEKA’s core
algorithms. It is represented as shown in the following figure. The Knowledge Flow presents a data-
flow inspired interface to WEKA.
The Knowledge Flow offers the following features:
1. Intuitive data flow style layout.
2. Process data in batches or incrementally.
3. Process multiple batches or streams in parallel (each separate flow executes in its own thread).
4. Chain filters together.
5. View models produced by classifiers for each fold in a cross validation.
6. visualize performance of incremental classifiers during processing

Software Lab-II(DWH) Dept. of CSE

Exp No: 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEKA 11
Roll Number: Ur num here

7. Plug-in facility for allowing easy addition of new components to the Knowledge Flow.

Components:

1. Data Sources: All WEKA loaders are available.

2. Data Sinks: All WEKA savers are available.
3. Filters: All WEKA’s filters are available.
4. Classifiers: All WEKA classifiers are available.
5. Clusterers: All WEKA clusterers are available.
6. Evaluation: It contains different kinds of techniques like TrainingSetMaker, TestSetMaker,
CrossValidationFoldMaker, TrainTestSplitMaker, ClassAssigner, ClassValuePicker,
ClassifierPerformanceEvaluator, IncrementalClassifierEvaluator,
ClustererPerformanceEvaluator, and PredictionAppender.

Software Lab-II(DWH) Dept. of CSE

Exp No: 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEKA 12
Roll Number: Ur num here

7. Visualization: It contains different models like DataVisualizer, ScatterPlotMatrix,

AttributeSummarizer, ModelPerformanceChart, TextViewer, GraphViewerbased, and
StripChart.
Plug-in Facility:
The Knowledge Flow offers the ability to easily add new components via a plug-in mechanism.
SIMPLE CLI:
The Simple CLI provides full access to all Weka classes like classifiers, filters, clusterers, etc.,
but without the hassle of the CLASSPATH.
It offers a simple Weka shell with separated command line and output.
The simple command line interface is represented as shown in the following figure:

The following commands are available in the Simple CLI:

1. java <classname> [<args>]: - invokes a java class with the given arguments (if any)
2. break: - it stops the current thread in a friendly manner. e.g., a running classifier
3. kill: - stops the current thread in an unfriendly fashion
4. cls:- clears the output area
5. exit:- exits the Simple CLI
6. help [<command>]:- provides an information about the command available in the simple
CLI. Also it provides an overview of all commands available if the command is not specified
as an argument.

Software Lab-II(DWH) Dept. of CSE

Exp No: 1 INTRODUCTION TO WEKA 13
Roll Number: Ur num here

In order to invoke a Weka class, only the way is one has to prefix the class with”java”. This
command tells the Simple CLI to load a class and execute it with any given parameters.
For example: java weka.classifiers.trees.J48 -t c:/temp/iris.arff which results in the following
output.

Using simple CLI we can also perform command redirection using the operator “>”. For
example: java weka.classifiers.trees.J48 -t test.arff > j48.txt

Software Lab-II(DWH) Dept. of CSE