Homework 2
CS522, Winter 2011


Due: Wednesday, February 2

Please upload your files to CSNS. The files should include all the source code, documentation (optional), and a text file hw2.txt, which contains detailed instructions on how to compile and run your program on the CS3 server. Note that file uploading will be disabled automatically after 11:59PM of the due date, so please turn in your work on time.

[Readings]

[Association Rule Mining with Apriori Algorithm] (80pt)

For this assignment, you are going to implement the Apriori Algorithm described in Chapter 5.2 of the textbook to mine strong association rules. You may use any programming language of your choice, as long as your program can be compiled and run on CS3.

Please send an email to csun@calstatela.edu and ask for an account on CS3. A number of programming languages are available on CS3, including C, C++, Java, and several scripting languages such as Perl, Python, and Ruby. Please try compiling and running a simple program on CS3 before you decide what language you are going to use.

You program must take four command line parameters as follows (I'm going to use Java for examples, but as stated earlier, you may use other programming languages):

java Apriori <inputFile> <outputFile> <minSupportCount> <minConfidence>

A -> B, SupportCount, Confidence

For example:

48 170 -> 38 39, 1193, 0.7662170841361593

After you complete your program, please test it with a small dataset (e.g. test.txt) to make sure the results are correct, and then test it with a larger dataset (e.g. retail.txt) to make sure its performance is reasonable.

Note that


[1] retail.txt is a dataset provided by Tom Brijs and contains the anonymized retail market basket data from an anonymous Belgian retail store.