DATA MINING Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
Desktop Survival Project Home List of Figures List of Tables Data Mining Data Mining Data Mining with Rattle Introduction Data Transform Explore A Model Building Framework Unsupervised Modelling Two Class Models Multi Class Models Regression Models Text Mining Evaluation and Deployment Moving into R Troubleshooting R for the Data Miner R Data Graphics in R Understanding Data Preparing Data Building Models Evaluating Models Algorithms Apriori Bagging Bayes Classifier Boosting Cluster Analysis Conditional Trees Hierarchical Clustering K-Means K-Nearest Neighbours Linear Models Logistic Regression Neural Networks Support Vector Machines Text Mining Open Products AlphaMiner Borgelt Data Mining Suite KNime R Rattle Weka Closed Products C4.5 Clementine Equbits Foresight GhostMiner InductionEngine ODM Enterprise Miner Statistica Data Miner TreeNet Virtual Predict Appendicies Glossary Bibliography Index

Training and Test Datasets

Often in modelling we build our model on a training set and then test its performance on a test set. The simplest approach to generating a partitioning of your dataset into a training and test set is with the sample function:

> sub <- sample(nrow(iris), floor(nrow(iris) * 0.8))
> iris.train <- iris[sub, ]
> iris.test <- iris[-sub, ]

The first argument to sample is the top of the range of integers you wish to choose from, and the second is the number to choose.

The sample.split function of the caTools package also comes in handy here. It will split a vector into two subsets, two thirds in one and one third in the other, maintaining the relative ratio of the different categorical values represented in the vector:

> mask <- sample.split(iris$Species)
> mask
  [1] FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE
[...]
[145]  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE
> table(iris$Species)

    setosa versicolor  virginica
        50         50         50
> table(iris$Species[mask])

    setosa versicolor  virginica
        33         33         33
> table(iris$Species[!mask])

    setosa versicolor  virginica
        17         17         17

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