To get the most out of this book

This book is designed to provide basic examples of the most important features of scikit-learn v1.5. In order to maximize the effectiveness of your learning, in addition to completing the exercises in each chapter, we encourage you to try your own examples and explore additional function arguments beyond those presented. Additionally, combining your learning from different chapters is an effective way to coalesce your scikit-learning understanding holistically.

Each chapter reminds you of the GitHub repository where example code is stored and how to install it locally.

Installing Python libraries in virtual environments with requirements.txt

Installing Python packages from a requirements.txt file is a common practice for managing project dependencies. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

1. Navigate to your project directory.
2. Open your Terminal or Command Prompt and navigate to the root directory of your Python project, where the requirements.txt file is located:

   cd /path/to/your/project

3. Using a virtual environment isolates your project’s dependencies from other Python projects on your system, preventing conflicts. Next, create the virtual environment:

   python -m venv venv_name

   (Replace venv_name with your desired name for the virtual environment, e.g., venv or scikitlearncookbook.)

4. Activate the virtual environment:
   • On macOS/Linux, use the following:

     source venv_name/bin/activate

   • On Windows, use this:

     venv_name\Scripts\activate

pip install -r requirements.txt

pip list

deactivate

from sklearn.model_selection import learning_curve
from sklearn.metrics import confusion_matrix
import seaborn as sns