This document is intended as a guide for those interested in the creation or development of TensorFlow functionality in other programming languages. It describes the features of TensorFlow and recommended steps for making the same available in other programming languages.
Python was the first client language supported by TensorFlow and currently supports the most features. More and more of that functionality is being moved into the core of TensorFlow (implemented in C++) and exposed via a C API. Client languages should use the language's foreign function interface (FFI) to call into this C API to provide TensorFlow functionality.
Providing TensorFlow functionality in a programming language can be broken down into broad categories:
GraphDef
(or MetaGraphDef
) protocol message, be able to create a session, run queries, and get tensor results. This is sufficient for a mobile app or server that wants to run inference on a pre-trained model.GraphDef
. Defines a FunctionDef
in the FunctionDefLibrary
included in a GraphDef
.At a minimum, a language binding should support running a predefined graph, but most should also support graph construction. The TensorFlow Python API provides all these features.
New language support should be built on top of the C API. However, as you can see in the table below, not all functionality is available in C yet. Providing more functionality in the C API is an ongoing project.
Feature | Python | C |
---|---|---|
Run a predefined Graph |
tf.import_graph_def , tf.Session
|
TF_GraphImportGraphDef , TF_NewSession
|
Graph construction with generated op functions | Yes | Yes (The C API supports client languages that do this) |
Gradients | tf.gradients | |
Functions | tf.python.framework.function.Defun | |
Control Flow |
tf.cond , tf.while_loop
| |
Neural Network library |
tf.train , tf.nn , tf.contrib.layers , tf.contrib.slim
|
A language binding is expected to define the following classes:
Graph
: A graph representing a TensorFlow computation. Consists of operations (represented in the client language by Operation
s) and corresponds to a TF_Graph
in the C API. Mainly used as an argument when creating new Operation
objects and when starting a Session
. Also supports iterating through the operations in the graph (TF_GraphNextOperation
), looking up operations by name (TF_GraphOperationByName
), and converting to and from a GraphDef
protocol message (TF_GraphToGraphDef
and TF_GraphImportGraphDef
in the C API).Operation
: Represents a computation node in the graph. Corresponds to a TF_Operation
in the C API.Output
: Represents one of the outputs of an operation in the graph. Has a DataType
(and eventually a shape). May be passed as an input argument to a function for adding operations to a graph, or to a Session
's Run()
method to fetch that output as a tensor. Corresponds to a TF_Output
in the C API.Session
: Represents a client to a particular instance of the TensorFlow runtime. Its main job is to be constructed with a Graph
and some options and then field calls to Run()
the graph. Corresponds to a TF_Session
in the C API.Tensor
: Represents an N-dimensional (rectangular) array with elements all the same DataType
. Gets data into and out of a Session
's Run()
call. Corresponds to a TF_Tensor
in the C API.DataType
: An enumerant with all the possible tensor types supported by TensorFlow. Corresponds to TF_DataType
in the C API and often referred to as dtype
in the Python API.TensorFlow has many ops, and the list is not static, so we recommend generating the functions for adding ops to a graph instead of writing them by individually by hand (though writing a few by hand is a good way to figure out what the generator should generate). The information needed to generate a function is contained in an OpDef
protocol message.
There are a few ways to get a list of the OpDef
s for the registered ops:
TF_GetAllOpList
in the C API retrieves all registered OpDef
protocol messages. This can be used to write the generator in the client language. This requires that the client language have protocol buffer support in order to interpret the OpDef
messages.OpRegistry::Global()->GetRegisteredOps()
returns the same list of all registered OpDef
s (defined in [tensorflow/core/framework/op.h
]). This can be used to write the generator in C++ (particularly useful for languages that do not have protocol buffer support).tensorflow/core/ops/ops.pbtxt
] by an automated process.The OpDef
specifies the following:
An OpDef
can be converted into the text of a function that adds that op to the graph using the TF_OperationDescription
C API (wrapped in the language's FFI):
TF_NewOperation()
to create the TF_OperationDescription*
.TF_AddInput()
or TF_AddInputList()
once per input (depending on whether the input has a list type).TF_SetAttr*()
functions to set non-inferred attributes. May skip attributes with defaults if you don't want to override the default value.TF_SetDevice()
: force the operation onto a specific device.TF_AddControlInput()
: add requirements that another operation finish before this operation starts runningTF_SetAttrString("_kernel")
to set the kernel label (rarely used)TF_ColocateWith()
to colocate one op with anotherTF_FinishOperation()
when done. This adds the operation to the graph, after which it can't be modified.The existing examples run the code generator as part of the build process (using a Bazel genrule). Alternatively, the code generator can be run by an automated cron process, possibly checking in the result. This creates a risk of divergence between the generated code and the OpDef
s checked into the repository, but is useful for languages where code is expected to be generated ahead of time like go get
for Go and cargo ops
for Rust. At the other end of the spectrum, for some languages the code could be generated dynamically from [tensorflow/core/ops/ops.pbtxt
].
Calling code will be much more concise if users can provide constants to input arguments. The generated code should convert those constants to operations that are added to the graph and used as input to the op being instantiated.
If the language allows for optional parameters to a function (like keyword arguments with defaults in Python), use them for optional attributes, operation names, devices, control inputs etc. In some languages, these optional parameters can be set using dynamic scopes (like "with" blocks in Python). Without these features, the library may resort to the "builder pattern", as is done in the C++ version of the TensorFlow API.
It is a good idea to have support for naming graph operations using some sort of scoping hierarchy, especially considering the fact that TensorBoard relies on it to display large graphs in a reasonable way. The existing Python and C++ APIs take different approaches: In Python, the "directory" part of the name (everything up to the last "/") comes from with
blocks. In effect, there is a thread-local stack with the scopes defining the name hierarchy. The last component of the name is either supplied explicitly by the user (using the optional name
keyword argument) or defaults to the name of the type of the op being added. In C++ the "directory" part of the name is stored in an explicit Scope
object. The NewSubScope()
method appends to that part of the name and returns a new Scope
. The last component of the name is set using the WithOpName()
method, and like Python defaults to the name of the type of op being added. Scope
objects are explicitly passed around to specify the name of the context.
It may make sense to keep the generated functions private for some ops so that wrapper functions that do a little bit of additional work can be used instead. This also gives an escape hatch for supporting features outside the scope of generated code.
One use of a wrapper is for supporting SparseTensor
input and output. A SparseTensor
is a tuple of 3 dense tensors: indices, values, and shape. values is a vector size [n], shape is a vector size [rank], and indices is a matrix size [n, rank]. There are some sparse ops that use this triple to represent a single sparse tensor.
Another reason to use wrappers is for ops that hold state. There are a few such ops (e.g. a variable) that have several companion ops for operating on that state. The Python API has classes for these ops where the constructor creates the op, and methods on that class add operations to the graph that operate on the state.
Const
operation to a graph typically is a wrapper since the generated function will typically have redundant DataType
inputs.At this time, support for gradients, functions and control flow operations ("if" and "while") is not available in languages other than Python. This will be updated when the C API provides necessary support.
© 2018 The TensorFlow Authors. All rights reserved.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0.
Code samples licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.
https://www.tensorflow.org/extend/language_bindings