import input_data MNIST tensorflow not working

Question

TensorFlow MNIST example not running with fully_connected_feed.py

I checked this out and realized that input_data was not built-in. So I downloaded the whole folder from here. How can I start the tutorial:

import input_data
mnist = input_data.read_data_sets("MNIST_data/", one_hot=True)


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ImportError                               Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-6-a5af65173c89> in <module>()
----> 1 import input_data
      2 mnist = tf.input_data.read_data_sets("MNIST_data/", one_hot=True)

ImportError: No module named input_data

I'm using iPython (Jupyter) so do I need to change my working directory to this folder I downloaded? or can I add this to my tensorflow directory? If so, where do I add the files? I installed tensorflow with pip (on my OSX) and the current location is ~/anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/tensorflow/__init__.py

Are these files meant to be accessed directly through tensorflow like sklearn datasets? or am I just supposed to cd into the directory and work from there? The example is not clear.

EDIT:

This post is very out-dated

score 34 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 21 '21 at 17:05

34

So let's assume that you are in the directory: /somePath/tensorflow/tutorial (and this is your working directory).

All you need to do is to download the input_data.py file and place it like this. Let's assume that the file name you invoke:

import input_data
mnist = input_data.read_data_sets("MNIST_data/", one_hot=True)
...

is main.py and it is also in the same directory.

Once this is done, you can just start running main.py which will start downloading the files and will put them in the MNIST_data folder (once they are there the script will not be downloading them next time).

edited Jan 21 '21 at 17:05

Upulie Han

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answered Nov 12 '15 at 05:01

Salvador Dali

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Someone know what "one_hot=True" means? And where someone could go and read these details from his own? Thank you – Mattia Baldari Sep 21 '16 at 15:56
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For possible interested people, I found a possible answer, which is: "A one-hot vector is a vector which is 0 in most dimensions, and 1 in a single dimension.". Full explanation at page: https://www.tensorflow.org/versions/r0.10/tutorials/mnist/beginners/index.html#mnist-for-ml-beginners (search for the word 'one-hot') – Mattia Baldari Sep 21 '16 at 16:06
let's say we have a vector for images 0 to 9. So, it is a 10 element vector. one-hot vector means that only one class is active at a time. So, class of '6' images is active. or that element in vector has value of 1. – a3.14_Infinity Jul 02 '17 at 06:25
For additional context. During the training process, your optimizer (say gradient descent) minimizes the distance between your model's output and the one-hot vector. The smaller this distance is, the more accurate your model is. A common distance function to minimize is the cross-entropy function. Essentially your model needs a reference to compare it's output to so the weights and biases can continue to be adjusted until an acceptable accuracy is achieved. This reference is the one-hot encoded vector. – Ritwik Biswas May 16 '18 at 01:17
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Since the quoted link to input_data.py does not work, [this][1] file worked for me. [1]: https://gist.github.com/haje01/14b0e5d8bd5428df781e – Suyama87 Jun 02 '21 at 13:43

Kongsea · Answer 2 · 2016-06-18T11:10:37.567

25

The old tutorial said, to import the MNIST data, use:

import input_data
mnist = input_data.read_data_sets('MNIST_data', one_hot=True)

This will cause the error. The new tutorial uses the following code to do so:

from tensorflow.examples.tutorials.mnist import input_data
mnist = input_data.read_data_sets("MNIST_data", one_hot=True)

And this works well.

edited Jun 18 '16 at 11:10

answered May 31 '16 at 08:08

Kongsea

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When I try the method you mention from new tutorial, I get this error: `urllib.error.URLError: `. Any idea why? – user3731622 Feb 13 '17 at 19:35
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I was able to manually download the data from [here](https://web.archive.org/web/20160117040036/http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/). Make sure to download the file to the tensorflow MNIST_data folder `tensorflow\examples\tutorials\mnist` After doing this the `input_data.read_data_sets("MNIST_data", one_hot=True)` worked. – user3731622 Feb 13 '17 at 20:17
Hey, this worked for me, but I had to update pandas first. Use "`sudo pip install pandas --upgrade`" for that – Rich Mar 03 '17 at 09:32
@user3731622, I was getting that error occasionally as well. A bit of googling brought me to some other bug trackers for the issue. Apparently the website hosting that data is known to go down from time to time and it doesn't automatically try another mirror. – SuperTetelman Mar 07 '17 at 04:06

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 06 '15 at 00:27

I am using different version - following Install on Windows with Docker here - and had similar problem.

An easy workaround I've found was:

1.Into the Linux command line, figure out where is the input_data.py on my Docker image (in your case you mentionned that you had to download it manually. In my case, it was already here). I used the follwing linux command:

$ sudo find . -print | grep -i '.*[.]py'

I've got the files & path

./tensorflow/g3doc/tutorials/mnist/mnist.py
./tensorflow/g3doc/tutorials/mnist/input_data.py

2.launch Python and type the following command using SYS:

>> import sys
>> print(sys.path)

you will get the existing paths.

['', '/usr/lib/python2.7', '/usr/lib/python2.7/plat-x86_64-linux-gnu', '/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-tk', '/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-old', '/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload', '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages', '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages', '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/PILcompat']

4.add the path of inputa_data.py:

>> sys.path.insert(1,'/tensorflow/tensorflow/g3doc/tutorials/mnist')

Hope that it can help. If you found better option, let me know. :)

For me it worked like this: import tensorflow.examples.tutorials.mnist.input_data — Alexandru Ceausu, Jan 26 '16 at 10:35

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 04 '16 at 04:04

How can I start the tutorial

I didn't download the folder you did but I installed tensorflow by pip and then I had similar problem.

My workaround was to replace

import tensorflow.examples.tutorials.mnist.input_data

with

import tensorflow.examples.tutorials.mnist.input_data as input_data

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 01 '20 at 18:43

If you're using Tensorflow 2.0 or higher, you need to install tensorflow_datasets first:

pip install tensorflow_datasets

or if you're using an Anaconda distribution:

conda install tensorflow_datasets

from the command line.

If you're using a Jupyter Notebook you will need to install and enable ipywidgets. According to the docs (https://ipywidgets.readthedocs.io/en/stable/user_install.html) using pip:

pip install ipywidgets
jupyter nbextension enable --py widgetsnbextension

If you're using an Anaconda distribution, install ipywidgets from the command line like such:

conda install -c conda-forge ipywidgets

With the Anaconda distribution there is no need to enable the extension, conda handles this for you.

Then import into your code:

import tensorflow_datasets as tfds
mnist = tfds.load(name='mnist')

You should be able to use it without error if you follow these instructions.

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 27 '17 at 03:43

I might be kinda late, but for tensorflow version 0.12.1, you might wanna use input_data.read_data_sets instead.

Basically using this function to load the data from your local drive that you had downloaded from http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/.

from tensorflow.examples.tutorials.mnist import input_data mnist = input_data.read_data_sets('data_set/')

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 07 '19 at 18:47

2

For TensorFlow API 2.0 the mnist data changed place to: tf.keras.datasets.mnist.load_data

answered Dec 07 '19 at 18:47

Vasco Cansado Carvalho

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score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Dec 23 '19 at 22:33

There's now a much easier way to load MNIST data into tensorflow without having to download the data by using Tensorflow 2 and Tensorflow Datasets

To get started, make sure you import Tensorflow and specify the 2nd version:

%tensorflow_version 2.x
import tensorflow as tf

Then load the data into a dictionary using the following code:

MNIST_data = tfds.load(name = "mnist")

and Then split the data into train and test:

train, test = MNIST_data['train'] , MNIST_data['test']

Now you can use these data generators however you like.

Mojtaba Abdi Khassevan · Answer 9 · 2020-07-20T09:57:20.550

2

Remove the lines:

from tensorflow.examples.tutorials.mnist import input_data
fashion_mnist = input_data.read_data_sets('input/data',one_hot=True)

and the line below will suffice:

fashion_mnist = keras.datasets.fashion_mnist

Note that if the dataset is not available in the examples built-in to the keras, this will download the dataset and solve the problem. :)

edited Jul 20 '20 at 09:57

answered Jul 14 '20 at 05:17

Mojtaba Abdi Khassevan

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score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Mar 07 '17 at 03:41

cd your_mnist_dir &&\
wget https://github.com/HIPS/hypergrad/raw/master/data/mnist/mnist_data.pkl &&\
wget https://github.com/HIPS/hypergrad/raw/master/data/mnist/t10k-images-idx3-ubyte.gz &&\
wget https://github.com/HIPS/hypergrad/raw/master/data/mnist/t10k-labels-idx1-ubyte.gz &&\
wget https://github.com/HIPS/hypergrad/raw/master/data/mnist/train-images-idx3-ubyte.gz &&\
wget https://github.com/HIPS/hypergrad/raw/master/data/mnist/train-labels-idx1-ubyte.gz

score 1 · Answer 11 · edited Apr 02 '17 at 15:52

1

MNIST input_data was built-in, it's just not a individual module, it's inside Tensorflow module, try

from tensorflow.examples.tutorials.mnist import input_data

edited Apr 02 '17 at 15:52

pacholik

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answered Apr 02 '17 at 15:29

Cro

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score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Oct 03 '17 at 03:47

MNIST data set included as a part of tensorflow examples tutorial, If we want to use this :

Import MNIST data to identify handwritten digites

from tensorflow.examples.tutorials.mnist import input_data
mnist = input_data.read_data_sets("MNIST data", one_hot=True)

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Mar 25 '18 at 11:16

0

As TensorFlow official website shown, All MNIST data is hosted on http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/

answered Mar 25 '18 at 11:16

Johnny

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score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Apr 17 '20 at 07:04

0

For Tensorflow API above 2.0, to use MNIST dataset following command can be used,

import tensorflow_datasets as tfds
data = tfds.load(name = "mnist")

answered Apr 17 '20 at 07:04

Gowthaman

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score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Apr 23 '20 at 09:08

The following steps work perfectly in my Notebook:

step 1 : get Python files from github : !git clone https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow.git

step 2 : append these files in my Python path :

import sys

sys.path.append('/content/tensorflow/tensorflow/examples/tutorials/mnist')

step 3 : load the MNIST data with 'input_data' fonction

import input_data

mnist = input_data.read_data_sets("MNIST_data/", one_hot=True)

That's all !

import input_data MNIST tensorflow not working

15 Answers15

Import MNIST data to identify handwritten digites

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