python - ValueError: Number of features of the model must match the input

Question

I'm getting this error when trying to predict using a model I built in scikit learn. I know that there are a bunch of questions about this but mine seems different from them because I am wildly off between my input and model features. Here is my code for training my model (FYI the .csv file has 45 columns with one being the known value):

import pandas as pd
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
from sklearn import ensemble
from sklearn.metrics import mean_absolute_error
from sklearn.externals import joblib


df = pd.read_csv("Cinderella.csv")


features_df = pd.get_dummies(df, columns=['Overall_Sentiment', 'Word_1','Word_2','Word_3','Word_4','Word_5','Word_6','Word_7','Word_8','Word_9','Word_10','Word_11','Word_1','Word_12','Word_13','Word_14','Word_15','Word_16','Word_17','Word_18','Word_19','Word_20','Word_21','Word_22','Word_23','Word_24','Word_25','Word_26','Word_27','Word_28','Word_29','Word_30','Word_31','Word_32','Word_33','Word_34','Word_35','Word_36','Word_37','Word_38','Word_39','Word_40','Word_41', 'Word_42', 'Word_43'], dummy_na=True)

del features_df['Slope']

X = features_df.as_matrix()
y = df['Slope'].as_matrix()

X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y, test_size=0.3)

model = ensemble.GradientBoostingRegressor(
    n_estimators=500,
    learning_rate=0.01,
    max_depth=5,
    min_samples_leaf=3,
    max_features=0.1,
    loss='lad'
)

model.fit(X_train, y_train)

joblib.dump(model, 'slope_from_sentiment_model.pkl')

mse = mean_absolute_error(y_train, model.predict(X_train))

print("Training Set Mean Absolute Error: %.4f" % mse)

mse = mean_absolute_error(y_test, model.predict(X_test))
print("Test Set Mean Absolute Error: %.4f" % mse)

Here is my code for the actual prediction using a different .csv file (this has 44 columns because it doesn't have any values):

from sklearn.externals import joblib
import pandas


model = joblib.load('slope_from_sentiment_model.pkl')

df = pandas.read_csv("Slaughterhouse_copy.csv")


features_df = pandas.get_dummies(df, columns=['Overall_Sentiment','Word_1', 'Word_2', 'Word_3', 'Word_4', 'Word_5', 'Word_6', 'Word_7', 'Word_8', 'Word_9', 'Word_10', 'Word_11', 'Word_12', 'Word_13', 'Word_14', 'Word_15', 'Word_16', 'Word_17','Word_18','Word_19','Word_20','Word_21','Word_22','Word_23','Word_24','Word_25','Word_26','Word_27','Word_28','Word_29','Word_30','Word_31','Word_32','Word_33','Word_34','Word_35','Word_36','Word_37','Word_38','Word_39','Word_40','Word_41','Word_42','Word_43'], dummy_na=True)

predicted_slopes = model.predict(features_df)

When I run the prediction file I get:

ValueError: Number of features of the model must match the input. Model n_features is 146 and input n_features is 226.

If anyone could help me it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The reason you're getting the error is due to the different distinct values in your features where you're generating the dummy values with get_dummies.

Let's suppose the Word_1 column in your training set has the following distinct words: the, dog, jumps, roof, off. That's 5 distinct words so pandas will generate 5 features for Word_1. Now, if your scoring dataset has a different number of distinct words in the Word_1 column, then you're going to get a different number of features.

How to fix:

You'll want to concatenate your training and scoring datasets using concat, apply get_dummies, and then split your datasets. That'll ensure you have captured all the distinct values in your columns. Given that you're using two different csv's, you probably want to generate a column that specifies your training vs scoring dataset.

Example solution:

train_df = pd.read_csv("Cinderella.csv")
train_df['label'] = 'train'

score_df = pandas.read_csv("Slaughterhouse_copy.csv")
score_df['label'] = 'score'

# Concat
concat_df = pd.concat([train_df , score_df])

# Create your dummies
features_df = pd.get_dummies(concat_df, columns=['Overall_Sentiment', 'Word_1','Word_2','Word_3','Word_4','Word_5','Word_6','Word_7','Word_8','Word_9','Word_10','Word_11','Word_1','Word_12','Word_13','Word_14','Word_15','Word_16','Word_17','Word_18','Word_19','Word_20','Word_21','Word_22','Word_23','Word_24','Word_25','Word_26','Word_27','Word_28','Word_29','Word_30','Word_31','Word_32','Word_33','Word_34','Word_35','Word_36','Word_37','Word_38','Word_39','Word_40','Word_41', 'Word_42', 'Word_43'], dummy_na=True)

# Split your data
train_df = features_df[features_df['label'] == 'train']
score_df = features_df[features_df['label'] == 'score']

# Drop your labels
train_df = train_df.drop('label', axis=1)
score_df = score_df.drop('label', axis=1)

# Now delete your 'slope' feature, create your features matrix, and create your model as you have already shown in your example
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