|
The IDX file format is a simple format for vectors and multidimensional matrices of various numerical types.
The basic format according to http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/ is:
magic number
size in dimension 1
size in dimension 2
size in dimension 3
....
size in dimension N
data
The magic number is four bytes long. The first 2 bytes are always 0.
The third byte codes the type of the data:
0x08: unsigned byte
0x09: signed byte
0x0B: short (2 bytes)
0x0C: int (4 bytes)
0x0D: float (4 bytes)
0x0E: double (8 bytes)
The fourth byte codes the number of dimensions of the vector/matrix: 1 for vectors, 2 for matrices....
The sizes in each dimension are 4-byte integers (big endian, like in most non-Intel processors).
The data is stored like in a C array, i.e. the index in the last dimension changes the fastest.
If the storage format indicates that there are more than 2 dimensions, the resulting Matrix accumulates dimensions 2 and higher in the columns. For example, with three dimensions of size n1, n2 and n3, respectively, the resulting Matrix object will have n1 rows and n2×n3 columns.
The training and testing data of the MNIST database of handwritten digits at http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/ is stored in compressed IDX formatted files.
Reading the uncompressed file train-images-idx3-ubyte available at http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/ with 60000 images of 28×28 pixel data, will result in a new Matrix object with 60000 rows and 784 (=28×28) columns. Each cell will contain a number in the interval from 0 to 255.
Reading the uncompressed file train-labels-idx1-ubyte with 60000 labels will result in a new Matrix object with 1 row and 60000 columns. Each cell will contain a number in the interval from 0 to 9.
© djmw 20160220