TMVA: printing variable rank

TMVA
1

I recently transitioned from TMVA 3.8.13 to TMVA 3.9.5. I’ve had difficulty getting variable rankings to print. When I call the Factory constructor, I pass it an option string of “V” and when I call PrepareTrainingAndTestTree, I also pass an options string including “V”. For extra caution, I even call factory->SetVerbose() immediately after factory construction. Finally, when I call factory->BookMethod, my options string contains “V”. None of these cause the variable rankings to print. My output contains:

…
— Factory : Booking method: MLP
— Factory : Training all methods…
— Factory : Train method: MLP
— Factory : [>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>] (100%, time left: 2 sec)
— Factory : Begin ranking of input variables…
— Factory :
— Factory : Testing all classifiers…
…

So factory is trying to call CreateRanking(). I have many events in my training tree, so I do exceed the minimum in Factory.cxx to print ranks. My guess is the output is being squelched by MethodMLP, but I don’t know how else to set its verbosity level when I’ve already called BookMethod with “V” (I’ve also tried “VerbosityLevel=Info” to no avail). Afaik, methods don’t offer SetVerbose() like factory does.

Thanks for any suggestions,
Malina

2

Hi Malina,

The variable ranking should be always printed, independently of the verbose status. Something else must be wrong. Could you please send me the complete log output (privately to andreas.hoecker@cern.ch).

Thanks,
Andreas

3

Hi Malina and Andreas,

just to confirm: I just tested MLP with 3.9.5 and the variable ranking was printed for MLP.

Regards,
Joerg

4

Hi Joerg,

Yes, we had discussed this with Malina offline. She runs the TMVA Factory inside the CMS software. It appears as if there were a destructive interference between the CMS output streamer and the TMVA MsgLogger ?!

Cheers,
Andreas