# Read a machine-learning data file

Acquire / file

A variant of [Read another file format](https://meridian.online/operations/read-another-file-format).

Read training data and numeric arrays from formats such as ARFF, TFRecord, NumPy and HDF5.

Page: <https://meridian.online/operations/read-another-file-format/read-a-machine-learning-data-file>

## Status

Not built yet.

arcform does not do this yet. [Its place on the roadmap](https://meridian.online/roadmap#read-another-file-format)

## What other tools call it

Meridian's classification; an independent blind rating agreed on 95.7% of 324 rows (variant, version 3).

- KNIME Analytics Platform: [`ARFF Reader`](https://api.hub.knime.com/nodes/*4w7RzdogM5zej_mO?details=full) (read 2026-09-27)
- mlpack: [`ARFF`](https://www.mlpack.org/doc/user/load_save.html) (read 2026-09-27)
- mlpack: [`ArmaBin`](https://www.mlpack.org/doc/user/load_save.html) (read 2026-09-27)
- mlpack: [`CoordASCII`](https://www.mlpack.org/doc/user/load_save.html) (read 2026-09-27)
- mlpack: [`HDF5`](https://www.mlpack.org/doc/user/load_save.html) (read 2026-09-27)
- mlpack: [`RawBinary`](https://www.mlpack.org/doc/user/load_save.html) (read 2026-09-27)
- RapidMiner Studio: [`Read ARFF`](https://docs.rapidminer.com/latest/studio/operators/data_access/files/read/read_arff.html) (read 2026-09-27)
- RapidMiner Studio: [`Read C4.5`](https://docs.rapidminer.com/latest/studio/operators/data_access/files/read/read_c4.5.html) (read 2026-09-27)
- Talend: [`tFileInputARFF`](https://help.qlik.com/talend/en-US/components/8.0/arff/arff-component) (read 2026-09-27)
- VisiData: [`h5 (loader)`](https://github.com/saulpw/visidata/blob/7609212ec2febafa9caba7183cbebfaf49627909/visidata/loaders/hdf5.py#L5) (read 2026-09-23)
- VisiData: [`npy (loader)`](https://github.com/saulpw/visidata/blob/7609212ec2febafa9caba7183cbebfaf49627909/visidata/loaders/npy.py#L7) (read 2026-09-23)
- VisiData: [`npz (loader)`](https://github.com/saulpw/visidata/blob/7609212ec2febafa9caba7183cbebfaf49627909/visidata/loaders/npy.py#L11) (read 2026-09-23)
- Yggdrasil Decision Forests: [`partial_dataset_cache:`](https://github.com/google/yggdrasil-decision-forests/blob/0a54b57c95ff0cf42ecf0310ace0513a4f32cb65/yggdrasil_decision_forests/learner/distributed_decision_tree/dataset_cache/dataset_cache_reader.h) (read 2026-09-27)
- Yggdrasil Decision Forests: [`tfrecord+tfe: (read and write)`](https://github.com/google/yggdrasil-decision-forests/blob/0a54b57c95ff0cf42ecf0310ace0513a4f32cb65/yggdrasil_decision_forests/dataset/tensorflow/tf_example_io_tfrecord.h) (read 2026-09-27)
- Yggdrasil Decision Forests: [`tfrecord: (read and write)`](https://github.com/google/yggdrasil-decision-forests/blob/0a54b57c95ff0cf42ecf0310ace0513a4f32cb65/yggdrasil_decision_forests/dataset/tensorflow_no_dep/tf_record_tf_example.h) (read 2026-09-27)
- Yggdrasil Decision Forests: [`tfrecordv2+tfe: (read and write)`](https://github.com/google/yggdrasil-decision-forests/blob/0a54b57c95ff0cf42ecf0310ace0513a4f32cb65/yggdrasil_decision_forests/dataset/tensorflow_no_dep/tf_record_tf_example.h) (read 2026-09-27)
- Yggdrasil Decision Forests: [`ydf.util.read_tf_record`](https://github.com/google/yggdrasil-decision-forests/blob/0a54b57c95ff0cf42ecf0310ace0513a4f32cb65/yggdrasil_decision_forests/port/python/ydf/util/tf_example.py) (read 2026-09-27)