# Linear SVM in matlab and python giving different results

I have a particular dataset on which I am getting different results when using a linear SVM in matlab and sklearn toolbox.

The data has been normalized in matlab and imported into python from a mat file.

The codes used in Matlab is

acc = 0;
for i = 1:10
[train,test] = crossvalind('HoldOut',Y,0.2);
mdl = fitcsvm(X(train,:),Y(train),'KernelFunction','linear');%,'BoxConstraint', 10,'KernelScale',0.001);
predictions = predict(mdl,X(test,:));
C = confusionmat(Y(test),predictions);
acc(i) = (C(1,1)+C(2,2))/((C(1,1)+C(1,2)+C(2,1)+C(2,2)));
end
acc = sum(acc)/10;


The code used in python is

clf_opt = svm.SVC(C=10,gamma=0.001,kernel='linear',random_state=0, tol=1e-5)
clf_opt.fit(X,y)
cvs_svm = cross_val_score(clf_opt,X,y,cv=StratifiedKFold(10)).mean()


For matlab SVM I am getting an accuracy of around 77% and in python around 60%. The choice of parameters of C=10 and gamma = 0.001 was reached after doing a GridSearchCV in python.

I went through existing posts in google for reasons of difference in LinearSVM in matlab and python but none of them worked out. I also tried out X = StandardScaler().fit_transform(X) in python but changed accuracy by 0.5 %.

I am getting comparable classifier accuracies on standard datasets (eg.IRIS) but the results are differing in this dataset only. The dataset is attached in the link below

https://ufile.io/qs7jy

The link is a compressed file in 'rar' format and contains three files

Python_Dataset_X - Can be loaded with pickle

Python_Dataset_Y - Saved as np array

Matlab_Dataset.mat - Contains the X matrix as table and Y array.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

• It is not safe to load pickle data. It can execute arbitrary code. – keiv.fly Oct 31 '18 at 21:29

In Matlab, you are separating a train-test (HoldOut Validation) type of data separation. You get the accuracy of the test set.

In Python, you are making a 10-fold Cross Validation where you get the resulting accuracy of the 10-fold, not using any seperate test set.

This two methodologies are definitely not the same, you need to have the same train-test structures to compare the two fairly.

• Hi Ugur, Thanks for your suggestion. and pointing out the mistake. I changed in the matlab code from 'Holdout' to 'Kfold'. But the accuracies did not vary after doing so. Also I understand that due to the randomness in splitting of training and test set the accuracy values will have some variations. But a difference of 17% seems a lot to be attributed to this reason. – APaul31 Nov 6 '18 at 16:58
• It is possible that there may be some applicational difference between two libraries of Matlab and Python. However, you should be definitely and definitely sure that those two codes are the same in work style to compare them, one little parameter or detail can change it all. I recommend you to recheck your steps to ensure that you compare the same structures at the first hand. – Ugur MULUK Nov 7 '18 at 17:19