ganfs 0.1.1

GANFS: GAN-based Feature Selection for Machine Learning

GANFS: GAN-Based Feature Selection

A Python library for feature selection using Generative Adversarial Networks. GANFS trains a GAN on your data and uses perturbation-based sensitivity analysis on the discriminator to rank and select the most important features.

Installation

Install via PyPI (Recommended):

pip install ganfs

Install from GitHub (Latest Development Version):

pip install git+https://github.com/patelharsh15/GANFS-GAN-based-feature-selection.git

From source:

git clone https://github.com/patelharsh15/GANFS-GAN-based-feature-selection.git
cd GANFS-GAN-based-feature-selection
pip install -e .

Quick Start

from ganfs import GANFS
import pandas as pd

# Load your dataset
df = pd.read_csv("my_data.csv")
X = df.drop("label", axis=1)
y = df["label"]

# Initialize and train GANFS
selector = GANFS(epochs=200, batch_size=4096)
selector.fit(X, y)

# View feature ranking
ranking = selector.get_feature_ranking()
print(ranking)

# Select top 20 features
X_selected = selector.transform(X, k=20)

# Save/load trained models
selector.save("my_ganfs_model")
loaded = GANFS.load("my_ganfs_model")

API Reference

GANFS Class

Constructor Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
epochs	int	500	Number of GAN training epochs
batch_size	int	4096	Batch size for GAN training
learning_rate	float	0.001	Adam optimizer learning rate
label_smoothing	tuple	(0.9, 0.1)	Label smoothing for (real, fake)
perturbation_mode	str	'dynamic'	'dynamic' or 'static' perturbation scaling
perturbation_factors	list	[0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 5.0, 10.0]	Perturbation multipliers
checkpoint_dir	str/None	None	Directory for training checkpoints
verbose	bool	True	Print progress information
random_state	int/None	None	Random seed for reproducibility

Methods

Method	Description
fit(X, y)	Train GAN and compute feature sensitivities
transform(X, k)	Select top-K features from X
fit_transform(X, y, k)	Fit and transform in one step
get_feature_ranking()	Get DataFrame of features ranked by sensitivity
get_feature_pairs_from_data(X, top_n)	Analyze synergistic feature pair interactions
save(path)	Save trained model to disk
GANFS.load(path)	Load a saved model from disk

Usage with scikit-learn

from ganfs import GANFS
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier
from sklearn.metrics import accuracy_score

# Feature selection
selector = GANFS(epochs=200)
selector.fit(X_train, y_train)
X_train_selected = selector.transform(X_train, k=20)
X_test_selected = selector.transform(X_test, k=20)

# Downstream classification
clf = RandomForestClassifier()
clf.fit(X_train_selected, y_train)
accuracy = accuracy_score(y_test, clf.predict(X_test_selected))
print(f"Accuracy with top-20 GANFS features: {accuracy:.4f}")

How It Works

1. GAN Training — A Generator-Discriminator pair is trained on the feature data. The Generator learns to produce realistic synthetic samples, while the Discriminator learns to distinguish real from fake.

2. Sensitivity Analysis — After training, each feature is perturbed (using dynamic perturbation magnitudes scaled to each feature's natural granularity) and the discriminator's response is measured. Features that cause the largest output changes are the most discriminative.

3. Feature Ranking — Features are ranked by their average sensitivity scores across multiple perturbation levels and directions.

4. Feature Selection — The top-K features can be selected for downstream tasks (classification, regression, etc.).

Project Structure

├── ganfs/                           # Python package
│   ├── __init__.py                  # Public API
│   ├── ganfs.py                     # Main GANFS class
│   ├── models.py                    # Generator & Discriminator networks
│   ├── sensitivity.py               # Sensitivity analysis functions
│   └── utils.py                     # GPU setup & preprocessing utilities
├── pyproject.toml                   # Package build configuration
├── GAN Algo Final.ipynb             # Original research notebook
├── benchmarking.ipynb               # Benchmarking vs traditional methods
├── training_checkpoints/            # Saved model checkpoints
├── feature_pair_interactions.csv    # Feature interaction results
└── feature_sensitivity_results.csv  # Feature sensitivity results

Dataset Setup (for reproducing research results)

The original research uses the CIC-DDoS2019 dataset. The dataset files are too large (~12 GB) to host on GitHub.

Download Instructions

1. Visit the CIC-DDoS2019 dataset page
2. Request access and download the following CSV files:
   • DrDoS_DNS.csv, DrDoS_LDAP.csv, DrDoS_MSSQL.csv, DrDoS_NTP.csv
   • DrDoS_NetBIOS.csv, DrDoS_SNMP.csv, DrDoS_SSDP.csv, DrDoS_UDP.csv
3. Place all files in a CIC-DDoS2019/ folder at the repository root
4. Update the base_path in the notebook to "./CIC-DDoS2019/"

Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• TensorFlow 2.x (GPU support recommended)
• NumPy, Pandas, scikit-learn

Citation

If you use GANFS in your research, please cite:

Iman Sharafaldin, Arash Habibi Lashkari, Saqib Hakak, and Ali A. Ghorbani,
"Developing Realistic Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack Dataset and Taxonomy",
IEEE 53rd International Carnahan Conference on Security Technology, Chennai, India, 2019.

License

MIT License — see LICENSE for details.