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PROSE – Text Transformation

The Transformation.Text API is accessed through the Transformation.Text.Session class. The primary methods are Constraints.Add() which adds examples (or other constraints) to a session and Learn() which and learns a Transformation.Text program consistent with those examples. In order to use Transformation.Text, you need assembly references to Microsoft.ProgramSynthesis.Transformation.Text.dll,
Microsoft.ProgramSynthesis.Transformation.Text.Language.dll, and
Microsoft.ProgramSynthesis.Transformation.Text.Semantics.dll.

Basic usage

Session session = new Session();
IEnumerable<Example> examples = new[]
{
    new Example(new InputRow("Greta Hermansson"), "Hermansson, G.")
};
session.Constraints.Add(examples);
Program program = session.Learn();
object output = program.Run(new InputRow("Kettil Hansson")); // output is "Hansson, K."

The examples are given as an IEnumerable with the input and the correct output. The input to
Transformation.Text is a row of a table of data which may include data from multiple columns. The InputRow type lets you give a row as just a list of strings without naming the columns. To get more control, implement Transformation.Text‘s IRow interface.

One example with multiple strings

var session = new Session();
session.Constraints.Add(new Example(new InputRow("Greta", "Hermansson"), "Hermansson, G."))
Program program = session.Learn();
string output = program.Run(new InputRow("Kettil", "Hansson")) as string; // output is "Hansson, K.

(While the API types the output of running a Transformation.Text program as object, the output type will always be string (or null) in the current version. The cast to string is done using as string to acknowledge that future versions of Transformation.Text may support other return types.)

Multiple examples

Transformation.Text can be given multiple examples in order to generate a program that will generalize over differently formatted inputs. In this example, we give Transformation.Text a phone number to normalized in two different formats and it is able to take a phone number in a third similar format and normalize it as well.

var session = new Session();
var examples = new[]
{
    new Example(new InputRow("212-555-0183"), "212-555-0183"),
    new Example(new InputRow("(212) 555 0183"), "212-555-0183")
};
session.Constraints.Add(examples);
Program program = session.Learn();
string output = program.Run(new InputRow("425 311 1234")) as string; // output is "425-311-1234"

If your input data is in multiple formats, you will likely have to provide more than one example. A common workflow is
to have the user give a small number of examples and then inspect the output (possibly with inputs to inspect suggested by the significant inputs feature) and have the option of providing additional examples if they discover an undesired result. The code for that workflow might look something like this:

var session = new Session();
session.Constraints.Add(new Example(new InputRow("212-555-0183"), "212-555-0183"));
Program program = session.Learn();
// ... check program and find it is does not work as desired.
session.Constraints.Add(new Example(new InputRow("(212) 555 0183"), "212-555-0183"));
program = session.Learn();
string output = program.Run(new InputRow("425 311 1234")) as string; // output is "425-311-1234"

Inputs without known outputs

Most likely, when learning a program, you will have some idea of other inputs you intend to run the program on in the future. Transformation.Text can take those inputs and use them to help decide which program to return.

var session = new Session();
session.Inputs.Add(new InputRow("04/02/1962"),
                  new InputRow("27/08/1998"));
session.Constraints.Add(new Example(new InputRow("02/04/1953"), "1953-04-02"));
Program program = session.Learn();
string output = program.Run("31/01/1983") as string; // output is "1983-01-31"

Learning multiple programs

There are usually a large number of programs consistent with any given set of examples. Transformation.Text has a ranking scheme which it uses to return the most likely program for the examples it has seen, but in some cases this may not be the desired program.

LearnTopK() has a parameter k which specifies how many programs it should try to learn; it returns the top k ranked programs (or programs with the top k ranks if there are ties).

var session = new Session();
session.Constraints.Add(new Example(new InputRow("Greta Hermansson"), "Hermansson"));
// Learn top 10 programs instead of just the single top program.
IReadOnlyList<Program> programs = session.LearnTopK(k: 10);
foreach (Program program in programs)
{
    Console.WriteLine(program.Run(new InputRow("Kettil Hansson Smith"))); // note that this input has a middle name
}

The first several programs output “Smith”, but after that one outputs “Hansson Smith”. This could be used to ask the user which they meant or to do automated reranking of the top results based on some logic other than
Transformation.Text‘s internal ranking system.

To specifically get the top distinct outputs, without needing to directly access the programs, use
ComputeTopKOutputsAsync():

var session = new Session();
session.Constraints.Add(new Example(new InputRow("Greta Hermansson"), "Hermansson"));
IReadOnlyList<object> outputs = await session.ComputeTopKOutputsAsync(new InputRow("Kettil Hansson Smith"), k: 10);
foreach (object output in outputs)
{
    Console.WriteLine(output);
}

Serializing programs

Sometimes you will want to learn a program in one session and run it on other data in a future session or transfer learned programs between computers. In order to do so, PROSE supports serializing programs:

var session = new Session();
session.Constraints.Add(new Example(new InputRow("Kettil Hansson"), "Hansson, K."));
Program program = session.Learn();
// Programs can be serialized using .Serialize().
string serializedProgram = program.Serialize();
// Serialized programs can be loaded in another program using the Transformation.Text API using .Load():
Program parsedProgram = Loader.Instance.Load(serializedProgram);
// The program can then be run on new inputs:
Console.WriteLine(parsedProgram.Run(new InputRow("Etelka Bala"))); // outputs "Bala, E."

API

Learning Transformation.Text programs

To start, construct an empty Session which encapsulates learning a program for a single task, often refined over the course of multiple learning calls.

The collection of all known inputs should be provided using .Inputs.Add(). Transformation.Text can make good use of around one hundred inputs; providing over a thousand may cause performance issues for some operations, although it will attempt to work on only a randomly selected sample when possible if too many inputs are provided. If selecting a subset of inputs to provide, they should be representative of the inputs the program will be run on. The inputs provided can be accessed using .Inputs and removed using .RemoveInputs() or RemoveAllInputs().

The main input to the learning procedure is a set of constraints, primarily examples, which are provided using .Constraints.Add(). The following are common constraints used with Transformation.Text:

  • Example (or Example). The most common constraint. Asserts what the output should be for a specific input.
  • DoesNotEqual. The opposite: for a specific input, gives a specific disallowed output.
  • ColumnPriority. Used to specify which columns of the input to use. Useful if the IRow implementation exposes many columns but only a few columns should be used by the program.
  • OutputIs. Constrains the output to be of a specific semantic kind. Note that the .NET type of the output will still be string; support for other .NET types in the output is expected in the future. The supported types for this constraint are NumberType, PartialDateTimeType, and `FormattedPartialDateTimeType.
  • See the Transformation.Text.Constraints namespace for other constraints.

Session has three different methods for learning (plus “Async” variants):

  • Learn()/LearnAsync() returns the single top-ranked program as a Program.
  • LearnTopK()/LearnTopKAsync() takes an integer k and returns the top-k ranked programs as an
    IReadOnlyList.
  • LearnAll()]/LearnAllAsync() learns all programs consistent with the examples, giving the result compactly as a ProgramSet (wrapped in an IProgramSetWrapper).

To run a Program, use its Run() method:

public object Run(IRow input)

If performance of running a single program on many inputs is an issue, then implementing the IIndexableRow interface and using the Run(IIndexableRow) variant may help.