| jSymbolic
Tutorial - Installation |
INSTALLATION: PREREQUISITE SOFTWARE
- Make sure that Java is installed on your computer:
- It almost certainly already is installed on your computer, but we should
make sure, and install it if it is not there
- Windows:
- Windows button > type "Control Panel" and press enter
- Macintosh:
- Apple menu > System preferences
- Is there an icon named "Java"?
- If so, then Java is already installed on your computer.
- If not, then you will need to install Java in order to use
jSymbolic and Weka: https://java.com/en/download/help/mac_install.xml
- Warning: Some versions of the Macintosh operating system
do not support Java 9, so I suggest that you install Java
8 if you are using a Macintosh
- Both jSymbolic and Weka are equally happy in either version
of Java
- Install the Weka data mining software on your computer:
- Note: the instructions below are for version 3.8.2 of Weka. Newer versions of Weka may be available on the Weka download page, and the instalation instructions will likely be similar
- Windows:
- Download Weka onto your Desktop from: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/weka/weka-3-8-2-x64.exe
- Double click the "weka-3-8-2-x64.exe" file when it finishes
downloading in order to run the Weka installer
- Allow the installer to make changes to your computer, if asked
- Click the "Next" button on the installer window that
comes up, and then "I Agree", "Next", "Next",
"Install", "Next" and "Finish"
- This should create a "Weka 3.8" icon on your desktop
- Double click it just to make sure that it works
- Macintosh:
- Download Weka onto your Desktop from: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/weka/weka-3-8-2-oracle-jvm.dmg
- Double click the "weka-3-8-2-oracle-jvm.dmg" file when
it finishes downloading
- This will place a "weka-3-8-2" drive icon on your
Desktop, which should automatically open
- Double click on the "weka-3-8-2-oracle-jvm" icon in the
"weak-3-8-2" window that appears in order to run Weka
- Do this just to make sure that it works
- If you get a message saying that your security settings prevent
you from running Weka:
- Apple Menu > System Preferences > Security & Privacy
> General Tab
- Click the lock symbol in the lower left corner to allow
you to make changes
- Click on "Open Anyway", next to where it says
that Weka was blocked
- We will not use Weka yet
- For now, we are just verifying that Weka is installed and works
- I suggest that you install a good text editor on your computer, if you do
not already have one installed:
- The default system text editors (TextEdit on a Mac and Notepad on Windows)
work, but they can be a little unwieldy
- I therefore suggest that you install a more sophisticated text editor
(but you can make do with TextEdit or Notepad if you prefer)
- Windows:
- Macintosh:
- I suggest that you have a spreadsheet, like Excel, installed on your computer
if possible, but do not worry if you do not have access to one
- You can use Google Sheets (https://www.google.ca/sheets/about/)
as a free on-line alternative
- But this will require that you have a Google account
- And this will require that you upload everything you are working
on to your Google drive in the cloud, and that you download the results
back to your own computer afterwards for processing, which can be onerous
INSTALLATION: JSYMBOLIC AND DEMO DATA FILES
- Download the following two items onto the Desktop of your computer:
- The jSymbolic
software
- I suggest that you use the most recent version available on this web site
- Use the "user" version rather than the "developer" version
- The developer version includes source code and other content that is more advanced
- The tutorial
working files
- This is what you will be working on during the course of this tutorial
- The two files you just downloaded in the step above are in zip archives, and their contents
need to be extracted
- For each of the two .zip files you just downloaded onto your desktop:
- Windows:
- Double click on the zip file and drag its contents onto your Desktop
- Macintosh:
- Double click on the zip file and a folder will be generated automatically
holding its content
LANGUAGE SETTINGS AND SPECIAL CHARACTERS
- jSymbolic, Weka and many other software programs use a standard text file
format called "CSV"
- It basically consists of pieces of information separated by commas (and
line breaks)
- Unfortunately, this can be a problem in regions where the number standard
being used separates decimal values from integers using a comma rather than
a period
- e.g. expressing pi as 3,14 rather than 3.14
- This is a big problem for CSV files, since they will misinterpret such
commas as data separators rather than fractional markers
- So, regrettably, you will need to change the language/region
settings on your computer (and probably restart it) if you have your computer
set up to use such a numbering system
- Apologies on behalf of the ancient and presumably Anglocentric progenitors
of the CSV standard
- Also, CSV files can sometimes be incompatible with certain accented letters
and other "special" characters
- So, once again very regrettably, you may need to make sure that the files
you will be extracting features from do not have such characters in their
filenames or the rest of their directory paths
- And apologies again on behalf of the prevalent Anglocentrism of the computer
world
- In summary, the good news is that jSymbolic (and its native ACE XML files)
are happily compatible with all standard number systems and character
sets
- The bad news is that Weka and the CSV files you need to get information
to Weka is not compatible with either of these, so if you want to save
features in CSV files and/or use Weka, you may need to adjust your language/region
settings and avoid some (but not all) non-ASCII characters
VERSION INFORMATION
- This tutorial was prepared with the following operating
system and software versions:
- jSymbolic 2.2
- Weka 3.8.2
- Java 8 Update 161
- Windows 10, version 1709
- Mac OS 10.12.3 Sierra
- There might be slight differences if other versions are used
- But it is unlikely to be a problem
Congratulations, you have now downloaded everything you need. Now to get
jSymbolic up and running . .
.
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