TensorFlow, why there are 3 files after saving the model?

Question

Try this:

with tf.Session() as sess:
    saver = tf.train.import_meta_graph('/tmp/model.ckpt.meta')
    saver.restore(sess, "/tmp/model.ckpt")

The TensorFlow save method saves three kinds of files because it stores the graph structure separately from the variable values. The .meta file describes the saved graph structure, so you need to import it before restoring the checkpoint (otherwise it doesn't know what variables the saved checkpoint values correspond to).

Alternatively, you could do this:

# Recreate the EXACT SAME variables
v1 = tf.Variable(..., name="v1")
v2 = tf.Variable(..., name="v2")

...

# Now load the checkpoint variable values
with tf.Session() as sess:
    saver = tf.train.Saver()
    saver.restore(sess, "/tmp/model.ckpt")

Even though there is no file named model.ckpt, you still refer to the saved checkpoint by that name when restoring it. From the saver.py source code:

Users only need to interact with the user-specified prefix... instead of any physical pathname.

• meta file: describes the saved graph structure, includes GraphDef, SaverDef, and so on; then apply tf.train.import_meta_graph('/tmp/model.ckpt.meta'), will restore Saver and Graph.

• index file: it is a string-string immutable table(tensorflow::table::Table). Each key is a name of a tensor and its value is a serialized BundleEntryProto. Each BundleEntryProto describes the metadata of a tensor: which of the "data" files contains the content of a tensor, the offset into that file, checksum, some auxiliary data, etc.

• data file: it is TensorBundle collection, save the values of all variables.

I am restoring trained word embeddings from Word2Vec tensorflow tutorial.

In case you have created multiple checkpoints:

e.g. files created look like this

model.ckpt-55695.data-00000-of-00001

model.ckpt-55695.index

model.ckpt-55695.meta

try this

def restore_session(self, session):
   saver = tf.train.import_meta_graph('./tmp/model.ckpt-55695.meta')
   saver.restore(session, './tmp/model.ckpt-55695')

when calling restore_session():

def test_word2vec():
   opts = Options()    
   with tf.Graph().as_default(), tf.Session() as session:
       with tf.device("/cpu:0"):            
           model = Word2Vec(opts, session)
           model.restore_session(session)
           model.get_embedding("assistance")