How to load SVMlight format files in compressed form to pandas?

I have data in SVMlight format (label feature1:value1 feature2:v2 ...) as such

talk.politics.guns a:12 about:1 abrams:1 absolutely:1
talk.politics.mideast I:4 run:10 go:3

I tried sklearn.load_svmlight_file but it doesn't seem to work with categorical string features and labels. I am trying to store it into pandas DataFrame. Any pointers would be appreciated.

Solution

You can do it by hand... One way you can convert the file you want in a DataFrame:

svmformat_file = """~/svmformat_file_sample"""

# Read to list
with open(svmformat_file, mode="r") as fp:
    svmformat_list = fp.readlines()

# For each line we save the key:values to a dict
pandas_list = []
for line in svmformat_list:
    line_dict = dict()

    line_split = line.split(' ')
    line_dict["label"] = line_split[0]

    for col in line_split[1:]:
        col = col.rstrip()  # Remove '\n'
        col_split = col.split(':')
        key, value = col_split[0], col_split[1]
        line_dict[key] = value

    pandas_list.append(line_dict)

The result DataFrame with your example file:

pd.DataFrame(pandas_list)