TensorFlow variable float64 and float32 - r

I am a new to TensorFlow 1.8 and i am using it with R.
I am trying to create a variable float32.
t <- array(0, dim = 3600000)
TF_t <- tf$Variable(t,tf$float32,name="t")
But TensorFlow saves TF_t as a tf$float64.
TF_t
<tf.Variable 't:0' shape=(3600000,) dtype=float64_ref>
I know that the easy solution is tf$cast(TF_t,tf$float32), but i would like a solution that doesn't use cast and I would like to know why do i have this behavior.

There is no workaround to cast, but, why this behaviour is there is due to the fact that you decide on a default type for a tensor, in this float64, it is implicitly set in its constructor. Also, losses do need 64 bits most of the time given how much they vary and how low they can go.
As for the cast operation, it is actually the explicit setting of the type.

Related

Creating a large integer in Julia

I am learning Julia and I would like to create an object in Julia that contains just a single large integer, for example, 1100000. What I could do is write n = 1.1e6 but then the type of this object is Float64 and if I want to use it as an argument for rand(), I get an error message because the object is not an integer. So instead what I do is as follows.
n = Int64(1.1e6)
rand(n)
But it seems that I am changing the type of the variable here (from Float64 to Int64) and this should be avoided in Julia as far as I understand. Of course I could use n = 1100000 but this is inefficient and difficult to read in my opinion.
Am I changing the type of the variable here? If yes, is this a good way to change the type of the variable or is there a better way to create an integer using scientific notation without having to change the type of the variable?
Any help is much appreciated!
I would write it as:
n = 1_100_000
for me it is more readable than
n = Int(1.1e6)
(or even 1.1e6) but of course it is subjective.
Changing type like in Int(1.1e6) is not a problem in Julia. It will work, as long as passed float represents an integer (otherwise you will get InexactError error).

Can I define variable in Julia just like in Fortran

I am new to Julia. Have a quick question.
In Fortran, we can do
implicit none
Therefore whenever we use a variable, we need to define it first. Otherwise it will give error.
In Julia, I want to do the same time thing. I want to define the type of each variable first, like Float64, Int64, etc. So that I wish that Julia no longer need to automatically do type conversion, which may slow down the code.
Because I know if Julia code looks like Fortran it usually runs fast.
So, in short, is there a way in Julia such that, I can force it to only use variables whose types has been defined, and otherwise give me an error message? I just want to be strict.
I just wanted to define all the variables first, then use them. Just like Fortran does.
Thanks!
[Edit]
As suggested by the experts who answers the questions, thank you very much! I know that perhaps in Julia there is no need to manually define each variables one by one. Because for one thing, if I do that, the code will become just like Fortran, and it can be very very long especially if I have many variables.
But if I do not define the type of the each variables, is Julia smart enough to know the type? Will it do some conversions which may slow down the code?
Also, even if there is no need to define variables one by one, is there in some situations we may have to manually define the type manually?
No, this is not possible* as such. You can, however, add type annotations at any point in your code, which will raise an error if the variable is not of the expected type:
julia> i = 1
1
julia> i::Int64
1
julia> i = 1.0
1.0
julia> i::Int64
ERROR: TypeError: in typeassert, expected Int64, got a value of type Float64
Stacktrace:
[1] top-level scope
# REPL[4]:1
julia> i=0x01::UInt8
0x01
*Julia is a dynamically-typed language, though there are packages such as https://github.com/aviatesk/JET.jl for static type-checking (i.e., no type annotations required) and https://github.com/JuliaDebug/Cthulhu.jl for exploring Julia's type inference system.
Strict type declaration is not how you achieve performance in Julia.
You achieve the performance by type stability.
Moreover declaring the types is usually not recommended because it decreases interoperability.
Consider the following function:
f(x::Int) = rand() < 4+x ? 1 : "0"
The types of everything seem to be known. However, this is a terrible (from performance point of view) function because the type of output can not be calcuated by looking types of input. And this is exactly how you write the performant code with regard to types.
So how to check your code? There is a special macro #code_warntype to detect such cases so you can correct your code:
Another type related issue are the containers that should not be specified by abstract elements. So you never want to have neither Vector{Any} nor Vector{Real} - rather than that you want Vector{Int} or Vector{Float64}.
See also https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/performance-tips/ for further discussion.

Converting a Gray-Scale Array to a FloatingPoint-Array

I am trying to read a .tif-file in julia as a Floating Point Array. With the FileIO & ImageMagick-Package I am able to do this, but the Array that I get is of the Type Array{ColorTypes.Gray{FixedPointNumbers.Normed{UInt8,8}},2}.
I can convert this FixedPoint-Array to Float32-Array by multiplying it with 255 (because UInt8), but I am looking for a function to do this for any type of FixedPointNumber (i.e. reinterpret() or convert()).
using FileIO
# Load the tif
obj = load("test.tif");
typeof(obj)
# Convert to Float32-Array
objNew = real.(obj) .* 255
typeof(objNew)
The output is
julia> using FileIO
julia> obj = load("test.tif");
julia> typeof(obj)
Array{ColorTypes.Gray{FixedPointNumbers.Normed{UInt8,8}},2}
julia> objNew = real.(obj) .* 255;
julia> typeof(objNew)
Array{Float32,2}
I have been looking in the docs quite a while and have not found the function with which to convert a given FixedPoint-Array to a FloatingPont-Array without multiplying it with the maximum value of the Integer type.
Thanks for any help.
edit:
I made a small gist to see if the solution by Michael works, and it does. Thanks!
Note:I don't know why, but the real.(obj) .* 255-code does not work (see the gist).
Why not just Float32.()?
using ColorTypes
a = Gray.(convert.(Normed{UInt8,8}, rand(5,6)));
typeof(a)
#Array{ColorTypes.Gray{FixedPointNumbers.Normed{UInt8,8}},2}
Float32.(a)
The short answer is indeed the one given by Michael, just use Float32.(a) (for grayscale). Another alternative is channelview(a), which generally performs channel separation thus also stripping the color information from the array. In the latter case you won't get a Float32 array, because your image is stored with 8 bits per pixel, instead you'll get an N0f8 (= FixedPointNumbers.Normed{UInt8,8}). You can read about those numbers here.
Your instinct to multiply by 255 is natural, given how other image-processing frameworks work, but Julia has made some effort to be consistent about "meaning" in ways that are worth taking a moment to think about. For example, in another programming language just changing the numerical precision of an array:
img = uint8(255*rand(10, 10, 3)); % an 8-bit per color channel image
figure; image(img)
imgd = double(img); % convert to double-precision, but don't change the values
figure; image(imgd)
produces the following surprising result:
That second "all white" image represents saturation. In this other language, "5" means two completely different things depending on whether it's stored in memory as a UInt8 vs a Float64. I think it's fair to say that under any normal circumstances, a user of a numerical library would call this a bug, and a very serious one at that, yet somehow many of us have grown to accept this in the context of image processing.
These new types arise because in Julia we've gone to the effort to implement new numerical types (FixedPointNumbers) that act like fractional values (e.g., between 0 and 1) but are stored internally with the same bit pattern as the "corresponding" UInt8 (the one you get by multiplying by 255). This allows us to work with 8-bit data and yet allow values to always be interpreted on a consistent scale (0.0=black, 1.0=white).

How to pass a pointer to a subarray with BLAS function?

I am using Julia v0.3.5, which comes with WinPython 3.4.2.5 build 4. I am new to Julia. I am testing how fast Julia is compared to using SciPy's BLAS wrapper for ddot(), which has the following arguments: x,y,n,offx,incx,offy,incy. Julia's OpenBLAS library does not have the offset arguments, so I am trying to figure out how to emulate them while maximizing speed. I am passing 100MB subarrays of a 1GB array (vector) multiple times, so I don't want Julia to create a copy of each subarray, which would reduce the speed. Python's SciPy function is taking a couple of hours to execute, so would like to optimize Julia's speed. I have been reading about how Julia 0.4 will offer array views that avoid the unnecessary copy, but I am unclear about how Julia 0.3.5 handles this.
So far, I learned using REPL that the BLAS dot() function conflicts with the method in linalg/matmul.jl. Therefore, I learned to access it this way:
import Base.LinAlg.BLAS
methods(Base.LinAlg.BLAS.dot)
From the method display, I see that I can pass pointers to x and y subarrays and thus avoid a copy. For example:
x = [1., 2., 3.]
y = [4., 5., 6.]
Base.LinAlg.BLAS.dot(2, pointer(x), 1, pointer(y), 1)
However, when I add an integer offset to a pointer (to access a subarray), REPL crashes.
How can I pass a pointer to a subarray or a subarray to Base.LinAlg.BLAS.dot without the slowdown of a copy of that subarray?
Anything else I missed?
It segfaults because pointer arithmatic doesn't work like you probably think it does (i.e. the C way). pointer(x)+1 is one byte after pointer(x), but you probably want pointer(x)+8, e.g.
Base.LinAlg.BLAS.dot(2, pointer(x)+1*sizeof(Float64), 1, pointer(y)+1*sizeof(Float64), 1)
or, more user friendly and recommended:
Base.LinAlg.dot(x,2:3,y,2:3)
which is defined here.
I'd say using pointers like that in Julia is really not recommended, but I imagine if you are doing this at all then it is a special circumstance.

How to convert a Julia Bool Array to Fortran Logical Array

How can I convert a Julia Int/Bool Array/Vector to a Fortran LOGICAL array for use within Julia's ccall?
I tried passing it as Array{Bool} in https://gist.github.com/axsk/28f297e2207365a7f4e8/, but the code is not working correctly and I am quite confident the problem is the Bool-Logical conversion.
I don't know too much about calling Fortran code, but according to this
The Fortran standard does not specify how variables of LOGICAL type
are represented, beyond requiring that LOGICAL variables of default
kind have the same storage size as default INTEGER and REAL variables.
The GNU Fortran internal representation is as follows.
A LOGICAL(KIND=N) variable is represented as an INTEGER(KIND=N)
variable, however, with only two permissible values: 1 for .TRUE. and
0 for .FALSE.. Any other integer value results in undefined behavior.
So I'd do something like the following
julia_array = rand(Bool, 1:10)
fort_array = Int[x?1:0 for x in julia_array]
Then use fort_array as the input. Which Fortran compiler are you using?
EDIT: It turns out the Julia developers already define a type that will work with the linked BLAS/LAPACK, Base.BLAS.BlasInt, that will use the correct Int variant for the system.
As iaindunning posted before, Fortran represents Logical variables as Integers.
Unfortunately the representation of the type Integer varies from platform to platform.
While I had success using Int on Windows and Cint on Linux/MacOS, in the end I used BlasInt, which adopts depending on the platform.

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