# First Optimization¶

Usually, Optuna is used to optimize hyper-parameters, but as an example, let us directly optimize a quadratic function in an IPython shell.

In [1]: import optuna


The objective function is what will be optimized.

In [2]: def objective(trial):
...:     x = trial.suggest_uniform('x', -10, 10)
...:     return (x - 2) ** 2
...:


This function returns the value of $$(x - 2)^2$$. Our goal is to find the value of x that minimizes the output of the objective function. This is the “optimization.” During the optimization, Optuna repeatedly calls and evaluates the objective function with different values of x.

A Trial object corresponds to a single execution of the objective function and is internally instantiated upon each invocation of the function.

The suggest APIs (for example, suggest_uniform()) are called inside the objective function to obtain parameters for a trial. suggest_uniform() selects parameters uniformly within the range provided. In our example, from -10 to 10.

To start the optimization, we create a study object and pass the objective function to method optimize() as follows.

In [3]: study = optuna.create_study()
In [4]: study.optimize(objective, n_trials=100)
[I 2018-05-09 10:03:22,469] Finished trial#0 resulted in value: 52.9345515866657. Current best value is 52.9345515866657 with parameters: {'x': -5.275613485244093}.
[I 2018-05-09 10:03:22,474] Finished trial#1 resulted in value: 32.82718929591965. Current best value is 32.82718929591965 with parameters: {'x': -3.7295016620924066}.
[I 2018-05-09 10:03:22,475] Finished trial#2 resulted in value: 46.89428737068025. Current best value is 32.82718929591965 with parameters: {'x': -3.7295016620924066}.
[I 2018-05-09 10:03:22,476] Finished trial#3 resulted in value: 100.99613064563654. Current best value is 32.82718929591965 with parameters: {'x': -3.7295016620924066}.
[I 2018-05-09 10:03:22,477] Finished trial#4 resulted in value: 110.56391159932272. Current best value is 32.82718929591965 with parameters: {'x': -3.7295016620924066}.
[I 2018-05-09 10:03:22,478] Finished trial#5 resulted in value: 42.486606942847395. Current best value is 32.82718929591965 with parameters: {'x': -3.7295016620924066}.
[I 2018-05-09 10:03:22,479] Finished trial#6 resulted in value: 1.130813338091735. Current best value is 1.130813338091735 with parameters: {'x': 3.063397074517198}.
...
[I 2018-05-09 10:03:23,431] Finished trial#99 resulted in value: 8.760381111220335. Current best value is 0.0026232243068543526 with parameters: {'x': 1.9487825780924659}.
In [5]: study.best_params
Out[5]: {'x': 1.9487825780924659}


We can see that Optuna found the best x value 1.9487825780924659, which is close to the optimal value of 2.

Note

When used to search for hyper-parameters in machine learning, usually the objective function would return the loss or accuracy of the model.

## Study Object¶

Let us clarify the terminology in Optuna as follows:

• Trial: A single call of the objective function
• Study: An optimization session, which is a set of trials
• Parameter: A variable whose value is to be optimized, such as x in the above example

In Optuna, we use the study object to manage optimization. Method create_study() returns a study object. A study object has useful properties for analyzing the optimization outcome.

In [5]: study.best_params
Out[5]: {'x': 1.9926578647650126}

In [6]: study.best_value
Out[6]: 5.390694980884334e-05

In [7]: study.best_trial
Out[7]: FrozenTrial(number=26, state=<TrialState.COMPLETE: 1>, params={'x': 1.9926578647650126}, user_attrs={}, system_attrs={'_number': 26}, value=5.390694980884334e-05, intermediate_values={}, datetime_start=datetime.datetime(2018, 5, 9, 10, 23, 0, 87060), datetime_complete=datetime.datetime(2018, 5, 9, 10, 23, 0, 91010), trial_id=26)

In [8]: study.trials  # all trials
Out[8]:
[FrozenTrial(number=0, state=<TrialState.COMPLETE: 1>, params={'x': -4.219801301030433}, user_attrs={}, system_attrs={'_number': 0}, value=38.685928224299865, intermediate_values={}, datetime_start=datetime.datetime(2018, 5, 9, 10, 22, 59, 983824), datetime_complete=datetime.datetime(2018, 5, 9, 10, 22, 59, 984053), trial_id=0),
...
user_attrs={}, system_attrs={'_number': 99}, value=8.2881000286123179, intermediate_values={}, datetime_start=datetime.datetime(2018, 5, 9, 10, 23, 0, 886434), datetime_complete=datetime.datetime(2018, 5, 9, 10, 23, 0, 891347), trial_id=99)]

In [9]: len(study.trials)
Out[9]: 100


By executing optimize() again, we can continue the optimization.

In [10]: study.optimize(objective, n_trials=100)
...

In [11]: len(study.trials)
Out[11]: 200