Reload SpaCy language model on a running script

Question

I developed a simple model that makes use of the SpaCy model en_core_web_lg. The project structure is as follows:

/model/
    main.py
    app_functions.py
    SpaCy/
          SpaCy_clases.py

At SpaCy_clases.py I have something like this:

import spacy
nlp = spacy.load('en_core_web_lg')

class Spacy1():
   ...
   ...

class Spacy2():
   ...
   ...

The issue I'm facing is that line:

nlp = spacy.load('en_core_web_lg')

Since I need to import the model in the same file I define the classes, the same model is used all the time, I want to be able to change that.

I need to have the option to change:

nlp = spacy.load('en_core_web_lg')

By:

nlp = spacy.load('en_core_web_sm')

But if I do that with some variable at main.py that does not make any difference at all. How can I load a different model without having to stop the program and edit SpaCy_clases.py

I want to change the model in the complete scope of the project, since it is been used in several steps. But all the classes that make use of Spacy are defined at SpaCy_classes.py all the other files import this the classes from there.

@LuisRamonRamirezRodriguez Where are you using nlp? in those class SpacyN? — LiuXiMin, Jun 18 '19 at 22:17

LiuXiMin · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-19T02:41:43.987

1

If you only use nlp in SpaCy_clases, then there is one way.

from SpaCy import SpaCy_clases

# you want to change the nlp attribute of SpaCy_clases 
# if really really want to reload, which is bad practice 
SpaCy_clases.nlp = spacy.load('what_you_want')

really not recommend, but can work. The above way to change nlp in fact is using a global writable variable in many many files, which is very very bad thing.

edited Jun 19 '19 at 02:41

answered Jun 18 '19 at 23:00

LiuXiMin

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17

why is not recommended? if and API I want to be able to change the model if needed – Luis Ramon Ramirez Rodriguez Jun 19 '19 at 02:33
@LuisRamonRamirezRodriguez It is in module, so it can be used anywhere. – LiuXiMin Jun 19 '19 at 02:36
@LuisRamonRamirezRodriguez if you want to change model when needed, the best way is pass nlp as a param to model. So your change in one place will not harm the logic of other place. – LiuXiMin Jun 19 '19 at 02:39
the thing is that nlp = ... is not in SpaCy_clases I get an error while importing the classes – Luis Ramon Ramirez Rodriguez Jun 19 '19 at 02:44
I was trying to replicate the error, just got what you mean – Luis Ramon Ramirez Rodriguez Jun 19 '19 at 03:10
1

@LuisRamonRamirezRodriguez Great! You may also want to look at [this](https://docs.python.org/3/reference/executionmodel.html#resolution-of-names) and [my another answer](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56651307/global-and-local-scope-in-python/56652093#56652093) – LiuXiMin Jun 19 '19 at 03:39

Reload SpaCy language model on a running script

1 Answers1