Setup

Installation¶

Installation is done via pip:

pip install openml

Authentication¶

For certain functionality, such as uploading tasks or datasets, users have to sign up. Only accessing the data on OpenML does not require an account!

If you don’t have an account yet, sign up now. You will receive an API key, which will authenticate you to the server and allow you to download and upload datasets, tasks, runs and flows.

• Create an OpenML account (free) on https://www.openml.org.
• After logging in, open your account page (avatar on the top right)
• Open 'Account Settings', then 'API authentication' to find your API key.

There are two ways to permanently authenticate:

• Use the openml CLI tool with openml configure apikey MYKEY, replacing MYKEY with your API key.
• Create a plain text file ~/.openml/config with the line 'apikey=MYKEY', replacing MYKEY with your API key. The config file must be in the directory ~/.openml/config and exist prior to importing the openml module.

Alternatively, by running the code below and replacing 'YOURKEY' with your API key, you authenticate for the duration of the Python process.

In [ ]:

import openml

openml.config.apikey = "YOURKEY"

import openml openml.config.apikey = "YOURKEY"

Caching¶

When downloading datasets, tasks, runs and flows, they will be cached to retrieve them without calling the server later. As with the API key, the cache directory can be either specified through the config file or through the API:

• Add the line cachedir = 'MYDIR' to the config file, replacing 'MYDIR' with the path to the cache directory. By default, OpenML will use ~/.openml/cache as the cache directory.
• Run the code below, replacing 'YOURDIR' with the path to the cache directory.

In [ ]:

import openml

openml.config.set_root_cache_directory("YOURDIR")

import openml openml.config.set_root_cache_directory("YOURDIR")