# tf.contrib.seq2seq.sequence_loss

tf.contrib.seq2seq.sequence_loss(
logits,
targets,
weights,
average_across_timesteps=True,
average_across_batch=True,
softmax_loss_function=None,
name=None
)


Weighted cross-entropy loss for a sequence of logits.

Depending on the values of average_across_timesteps and average_across_batch, the return Tensor will have rank 0, 1, or 2 as these arguments reduce the cross-entropy at each target, which has shape [batch_size, sequence_length], over their respective dimensions. For example, if average_across_timesteps is True and average_across_batch is False, then the return Tensor will have shape [batch_size].

#### Args:

• logits: A Tensor of shape [batch_size, sequence_length, num_decoder_symbols] and dtype float. The logits correspond to the prediction across all classes at each timestep.
• targets: A Tensor of shape [batch_size, sequence_length] and dtype int. The target represents the true class at each timestep.
• weights: A Tensor of shape [batch_size, sequence_length] and dtype float. weights constitutes the weighting of each prediction in the sequence. When using weights as masking, set all valid timesteps to 1 and all padded timesteps to 0, e.g. a mask returned by tf.sequence_mask.
• average_across_timesteps: If set, sum the cost across the sequence dimension and divide the cost by the total label weight across timesteps.
• average_across_batch: If set, sum the cost across the batch dimension and divide the returned cost by the batch size.
• softmax_loss_function: Function (labels, logits) -> loss-batch to be used instead of the standard softmax (the default if this is None). Note that to avoid confusion, it is required for the function to accept named arguments.
• name: Optional name for this operation, defaults to "sequence_loss".

#### Returns:

A float Tensor of rank 0, 1, or 2 depending on the average_across_timesteps and average_across_batch arguments. By default, it has rank 0 (scalar) and is the weighted average cross-entropy (log-perplexity) per symbol.

#### Raises:

• ValueError: logits does not have 3 dimensions or targets does not have 2 dimensions or weights does not have 2 dimensions.