Tensorflow: how to save/restore a model?

Question

After you train a model in Tensorflow:

1. How do you save the trained model?
2. How do you later restore this saved model?

Answer 1

All the answers here are great, but I want to add two things.

First, to elaborate on @user7505159's answer, the "./" can be important to add to the beginning of the file name that you are restoring.

For example, you can save a graph with no "./" in the file name like so:

# Some graph defined up here with specific names

saver = tf.train.Saver()
save_file = 'model.ckpt'

with tf.Session() as sess:
    sess.run(tf.global_variables_initializer())
    saver.save(sess, save_file)

But in order to restore the graph, you may need to prepend a "./" to the file_name:

# Same graph defined up here

saver = tf.train.Saver()
save_file = './' + 'model.ckpt' # String addition used for emphasis

with tf.Session() as sess:
    sess.run(tf.global_variables_initializer())
    saver.restore(sess, save_file)

You will not always need the "./", but it can cause problems depending on your environment and version of TensorFlow.

It also want to mention that the sess.run(tf.global_variables_initializer()) can be important before restoring the session.

If you are receiving an error regarding uninitialized variables when trying to restore a saved session, make sure you include sess.run(tf.global_variables_initializer()) before the saver.restore(sess, save_file) line. It can save you a headache.