removing columns from a dataset/analysis

Question

Hi all,
I'm' new to Rapidminer so this is a basic question I'd appreciate your help with.

I'm running a decision tree (ID3Numerical).

How do I:
1) remove columns (variables) from a dataset before processing
2) alternatively, list the subset of the dataset's variables that I want to put through the tree?

In a related issue, how do I store and view a dataset that's been read in without running the whole ETL process again and pausing it after import?!

thanks in advance for all your help.

Richie

User401 · Answer

well if there's lunch...!
Thanks that's exactly what we wanted. We're not short of storage here but can't afford the time to repeatedly run through a long ETL process.

Thanks,
Richie

haddock · Answer

Nay probs, just copy the example set, like this.... I realise that you may not wish to clog up memory, so this is not perfect in the sense of a good debugger, still for what it is worth there is your answer. For serious users I'd really recommend a course up at RM, in two days I learnt more than in the preceeding two months of grappling with the guesswork. Besides which Ralf is a very approachable tutor and genial lunch host 8)

User401 · Answer

Thanks for the help haddock.

I ran Help\Rapidminer Tutorial but it has no search feature and when I close the tutorial dialog my whole process tree had been lost. So I gave up on that pretty quickly! I'll check the PDF you mention.

I think once these folks sort out their documentation they'll have a really excellent product that people will use. For an industry user wanting to get up and running quickly it's pretty lacking alright.

BTW, I have used breakpoints. Once you move on throuhg a breakpopint however, there's no way to go back and view the datasets. I'm coming from a SAS background where this is easy to do. Also, it's important to start a process at any stage since it's pointless to have to keep reading in the data before running any analytics. 
Any pointers on where I can find out about that?

Thanks and have a good weekend yourself.

R