Method merge_from_args

mingpt/utils.py:62–103

update the configuration from a list of strings that is expected to come from the command line, i.e. sys.argv[1:]. The arguments are expected to be in the form of `--arg=value`, and the arg can use . to denote nested sub-attributes. Example: --model.n_layer

(self, args)

        self.__dict__.update(d)

    def merge_from_args(self, args):
        """
        update the configuration from a list of strings that is expected
        to come from the command line, i.e. sys.argv[1:].

        The arguments are expected to be in the form of `--arg=value`, and
        the arg can use . to denote nested sub-attributes. Example:

        --model.n_layer=10 --trainer.batch_size=32
        """
        for arg in args:

            keyval = arg.split('=')
            assert len(keyval) == 2, "expecting each override arg to be of form --arg=value, got %s" % arg
            key, val = keyval # unpack

            # first translate val into a python object
            try:
                val = literal_eval(val)
                """
                need some explanation here.
                - if val is simply a string, literal_eval will throw a ValueError
                - if val represents a thing (like an 3, 3.14, [1,2,3], False, None, etc.) it will get created
                """
            except ValueError:
                pass

            # find the appropriate object to insert the attribute into
            assert key[:2] == '--'
            key = key[2:] # strip the '--'
            keys = key.split('.')
            obj = self
            for k in keys[:-1]:
                obj = getattr(obj, k)
            leaf_key = keys[-1]

            # ensure that this attribute exists
            assert hasattr(obj, leaf_key), f"{key} is not an attribute that exists in the config"

            # overwrite the attribute
            print("command line overwriting config attribute %s with %s" % (key, val))
            setattr(obj, leaf_key, val)