facebook
Error: A list of 'ChoiceParameter' is not iterable
While creating a list of choice parameters using dictionary:
parameters_list = [dict(name = parameter,
type = "choice",
values = [x,...]
) for parameter in all_parameters
]
it has warning UserWarning: sort_values is not specified for ChoiceParameter "xxx". Defaulting to True for parameters of ParameterType FLOAT. To override this behavior (or avoid this warning), specify sort_values during ChoiceParameter construction.
So if I want to avoid those warnings by creating my parameters using ChoiceParameter:
from ax import ChoiceParameter, ParameterType
[ChoiceParameter(name = parameter,
parameter_type = ParameterType.FLOAT,
values =[x,...],
is_ordered = True,
sort_values = False) for parameter in all_parameters]
it becomes an error
experiment = self.make_experiment(
File "/ax/lib/python3.9/site-packages/ax/service/utils/instantiation.py", line 908, in make_experiment
search_space=cls.make_search_space(parameters, parameter_constraints),
File "/ax/lib/python3.9/site-packages/ax/service/utils/instantiation.py", line 687, in make_search_space
typed_parameters = [cls.parameter_from_json(p) for p in parameters]
File "/ax/lib/python3.9/site-packages/ax/service/utils/instantiation.py", line 687, in
Although it's not critical, still better to have a way to pass "sort_values" through dict(), or having ChoiceParameter() iterable.
Yes, looking through the ChoiceParameter construction code it looks like there isn't yet a way to pass "sort_values" with a dict, thanks for bringing this to our attention.
If I am understanding correctly, you are passing a "ChoiceParameter" object into "parameter_from_json", and line 280 is erroring because ChoiceParameter is not an iterable object. This is expected, as parameter_from_json is meant to convert JSON objects to Parameter objects. Since you are now constructing the ChoiceParameter you do not need to pass it into parameter_from_json- you can instead use the ChoiceParameter directly. Let me know if this helps!
Thanks for the tips mgrange1998. But I guess my issue was that when I construct a list of "ChoiceParameter" using for loop, like: list_choice_parameters = [] for parameter in all_parameters: list_choice_parameters.append(ChoiceParameter(name = parameter, parameter_type = ParameterType.FLOAT, values =[x1, x2, ...], is_ordered = True, sort_values = False) ) and then pass list_choice_parameters to ax_client.create_experiment(name = name, parameters = list_choice_parameters, objectives = objectives ) this is throwing an error TypeError: argument of type 'ChoiceParameter' is not iterable
Instead, if I append dictionaries to "list_parameters=[]", and then pass to ax_client.create_experiment(), it is fine, but then the warning comes: sort_values is not specified for ChoiceParameter "xxx". Defaulting to True for parameters of ParameterType FLOAT. To override this behavior (or avoid this warning), specify sort_values during ChoiceParameter construction. Hopefully it makes sense.
Hello again- that makes sense to me. I have a pull request up which will fix your issue by allowing you to specify "sort_values" in the input dictionary https://github.com/facebook/Ax/pull/2231?fbclid=IwAR3d4oAlxseldMHHdwDW8Jv-WxnU9n7enoG74CU13wQKxjK5ko7Q9CFTxKQ Once this lands, you'll be able to specify "sort_values" explicitly to stop the UserWarning from appearing. Let me know if you have any other questions!
Closing this out since it looks like this has been addressed. Thanks for raising this @Runyu-Zhang!
