Pruner.md

Pruner on NNI Compressor
===

## Level Pruner

This is one basic pruner: you can set a target sparsity level (expressed as a fraction, 0.6 means we will prune 60%). 

We first sort the weights in the specified layer by their absolute values. And then mask to zero the smallest magnitude weights until the desired sparsity level is reached.

### Usage

Tensorflow code
```
from nni.compression.tensorflow import LevelPruner
config_list = [{ 'sparsity': 0.8, 'op_types': 'default' }]
pruner = LevelPruner(config_list)
pruner(model_graph)
```

PyTorch code
```
from nni.compression.torch import LevelPruner
config_list = [{ 'sparsity': 0.8, 'op_types': 'default' }]
pruner = LevelPruner(config_list)
pruner(model)
```

#### User configuration for Level Pruner
* **sparsity:** This is to specify the sparsity operations to be compressed to

***

## AGP Pruner
In [To prune, or not to prune: exploring the efficacy of pruning for model compression](https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.01878), authors Michael Zhu and Suyog Gupta provide an algorithm to prune the weight gradually.

>We introduce a new automated gradual pruning algorithm in which the sparsity is increased from an initial sparsity value si (usually 0) to a final sparsity value sf over a span of n pruning steps, starting at training step t0 and with pruning frequency ∆t:
![](../../img/agp_pruner.png)
>The binary weight masks are updated every ∆t steps as the network is trained to gradually increase the sparsity of the network while allowing the network training steps to recover from any pruning-induced loss in accuracy. In our experience, varying the pruning frequency ∆t between 100 and 1000 training steps had a negligible impact on the final model quality. Once the model achieves the target sparsity sf , the weight masks are no longer updated. The intuition behind this sparsity function in equation

### Usage
You can prune all weight from 0% to 80% sparsity in 10 epoch with the code below.

First, you should import pruner and add mask to model.

Tensorflow code
```python
from nni.compression.tensorflow import AGP_Pruner
config_list = [{
    'initial_sparsity': 0,
    'final_sparsity': 0.8,
    'start_epoch': 0,
    'end_epoch': 10,
    'frequency': 1,
    'op_types': 'default'
}]
pruner = AGP_Pruner(config_list)
pruner(tf.get_default_graph())
```
PyTorch code
```python
from nni.compression.torch import AGP_Pruner
config_list = [{
    'initial_sparsity': 0,
    'final_sparsity': 0.8,
    'start_epoch': 0,
    'end_epoch': 10,
    'frequency': 1,
    'op_types': 'default'
}]
pruner = AGP_Pruner(config_list)
pruner(model)
```

Second, you should add code below to update epoch number when you finish one epoch in your training code.

Tensorflow code 
```python
pruner.update_epoch(epoch, sess)
```
PyTorch code
```python
pruner.update_epoch(epoch)
```
You can view example for more information

#### User configuration for AGP Pruner
* **initial_sparsity:** This is to specify the sparsity when compressor starts to compress
* **final_sparsity:** This is to specify the sparsity when compressor finishes to compress
* **start_epoch:** This is to specify the epoch number when compressor starts to compress, default start from epoch 0
* **end_epoch:** This is to specify the epoch number when compressor finishes to compress
* **frequency:** This is to specify every *frequency* number epochs compressor compress once, default frequency=1

***