Make options and expt_dir args to main.main

[craffel]

Hi, I'd like to propose that instead of calling get_options in main.main to retrieve options and expt_dir, they are instead passed as arguments to main.main. As it currently is, the only way to run a Spearmint experiment is to run python main.py. With this change, that option is still available, but it will also be possible to run main.main from within a Python script - something like the following:

import spearmint.main
import os
import numpy as np

def branin(x, y):
    result = np.square(y - (5.1/(4*np.square(np.pi)))*np.square(x) +
         (5/np.pi)*x - 6) + 10*(1-(1./(8*np.pi)))*np.cos(x) + 10
    result = float(result)
    print 'Result = %f' % result
    return result

def main(job_id, params):
    return branin(params['x'], params['y'])

options = {'language' : 'PYTHON',
           'main-file' : os.path.basename(__file__),
           'experiment-name' : 'noconfig',
           'likelihood' : 'NOISELESS',
           'variables' : {"x" : {"type" : "FLOAT",
                                 "size" : 1,
                                 "min"  : -5,
                                 "max"  : 10},
                          "y" : {"type" : "FLOAT",
                                 "size" : 1,
                                 "min"  : 0,
                                 "max"  : 15}}}

if __name__ == '__main__':
    spearmint.main.main(options, os.getcwd())

Note that this consolidates the main.py file and the experiment file, makes the 'main-file' option resilient to filename changes, and also obviates the need for a config file - we can just turn the config into a dict in the experiment file. And, again, it doesn't change the existing behavior. If there's something fundamental I'm missing here which suggests this is a bad idea, please correct me, but otherwise I think this small change would substantially clean up many use-cases! Thanks.

[jan-glx]

I like this a lot. But just encountered a problem which I could solve by renaming my script with the nice name "main.py" to something else. Could be that that problem existed before however. best, Jan

  File "c:\[...]\spearmint\main.py", line 233, in main
    options['chooser']  = options.get('chooser', 'default_chooser')
AttributeError: 'int' object has no attribute 'get'

[craffel]

Hm, I would assume this was there before; apparently main is getting passed an int instead of a dict. Can you post your full code example and the full traceback?