New page detailing the use of TorchScript.

docs/source/index.rst

@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ Pytorch-Transformers
     notebooks
     tpu
     cli
+    torchscript
 
 
 .. toctree::

docs/source/torchscript.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,130 @@
+TorchScript
+================================================
+
+According to Pytorch's documentation: "TorchScript is a way to create serializable and optimizable models from PyTorch code".
+Pytorch's two modules `JIT and TRACE <https://pytorch.org/docs/stable/jit.html>`_ allow the developer to export
+their model to be re-used in other programs, such as efficiency-oriented C++ programs.
+
+We have provided an interface that allows the export of `pytorch-transformers` models to TorchScript so that they can
+be reused in a different environment than a Pytorch-based python program. Here we explain how to use our models so that
+they can be exported, and what to be mindful of when using these models with TorchScript.
+
+Exporting a model needs two things:
+
+* dummy inputs to execute a model forward pass.
+* the model needs to be instantiated with the ``torchscript`` flag.
+
+These necessities imply several things developers should be careful about. These are detailed below.
+
+
+Implications
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+TorchScript flag and tied weights
+------------------------------------------------
+This flag is necessary because most of the language models in this repository have tied weights between their
+``Embedding`` layer and their ``Decoding`` layer. TorchScript does not allow the export of models that have tied weights,
+it is therefore necessary to untie the weights beforehand.
+
+This implies that models instantiated with the ``torchscript`` flag have their ``Embedding`` layer and ``Decoding`` layer
+separate, which means that they should not be trained down the line. Training would de-synchronize the two layers,
+leading to unexpected results.
+
+This is not the case for models that do not have a Language Model head, as those do not have tied weights. These models
+can be safely exported without the ``torchscript`` flag.
+
+Dummy inputs and standard lengths
+------------------------------------------------
+
+The dummy inputs are used to do a model forward pass. While the inputs' values are propagating through the layers,
+Pytorch keeps track of the different operations executed on each tensor. These recorded operations are then used
+to create the "trace" of the model.
+
+The trace is created relatively to the inputs' dimensions. It is therefore constrained by the dimensions of the dummy
+input, and will not work for any other sequence length or batch size. When trying with a different size, an error such
+as:
+
+``The expanded size of the tensor (3) must match the existing size (7) at non-singleton dimension 2``
+
+will be raised. It is therefore recommended to trace the model with a dummy input size at least as large as the largest
+input that will be fed to the model during inference. Padding can be performed to fill the missing values. As the model
+will have been traced with a large input size however, the dimensions of the different matrix will be large as well,
+resulting in more calculations.
+
+It is recommended to be careful of the total number of operations done on each input and to follow performance closely
+when exporting varying sequence-length models.
+
+Using TorchScript in Python
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Below are examples of using the Python to save, load models as well as how to use the trace for inference.
+
+Saving a model
+------------------------------------------------
+
+This snippet shows how to use TorchScript to export a ``BertModel``. Here the ``BertModel`` is instantiated
+according to a ``BertConfig`` class and then saved to disk under the filename ``traced_bert.pt``
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    from pytorch_pretrained_bert import BertModel, BertTokenizer, BertConfig
+    import torch
+
+    enc = BertTokenizer.from_pretrained("bert-base-uncased")
+
+    # Tokenizing input text
+    text = "[CLS] Who was Jim Henson ? [SEP] Jim Henson was a puppeteer [SEP]"
+    tokenized_text = enc.tokenize(text)
+
+    # Masking one of the input tokens
+    masked_index = 8
+    tokenized_text[masked_index] = '[MASK]'
+    indexed_tokens = enc.convert_tokens_to_ids(tokenized_text)
+    segments_ids = [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1]
+
+    # Creating a dummy input
+    tokens_tensor = torch.tensor([indexed_tokens])
+    segments_tensors = torch.tensor([segments_ids])
+    dummy_input = [tokens_tensor, segments_tensors]
+
+    # Initializing the model with the torchscript flag
+    # Flag set to True even though it is not necessary as this model does not have an LM Head.
+    config = BertConfig(vocab_size_or_config_json_file=32000, hidden_size=768,
+        num_hidden_layers=12, num_attention_heads=12, intermediate_size=3072, torchscript=True)
+
+    # Instantiating the model
+    model = BertModel(config)
+
+    # The model needs to be in evaluation mode
+    model.eval()
+
+    # Creating the trace
+    traced_model = torch.jit.trace(model, [tokens_tensor, segments_tensors])
+    torch.jit.save(traced_model, "traced_bert.pt")
+
+Loading a model
+------------------------------------------------
+
+This snippet shows how to load the ``BertModel`` that was previously saved to disk under the name ``traced_bert.pt``.
+We are re-using the previously initialised ``dummy_input``.
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    loaded_model = torch.jit.load("traced_model.pt")
+    loaded_model.eval()
+
+    all_encoder_layers, pooled_output = loaded_model(dummy_input)
+
+Using a traced model for inference
+------------------------------------------------
+
+Using the traced model for inference is as simple as using its ``__call__`` dunder method:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    traced_model(tokens_tensor, segments_tensors)
+
+(Optional) Using TorchScript in C++
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Below are examples of using a model exported using Python in C++.