
## fastText

<br>

The **fastText** R package is an interface to the
[fastText](https://github.com/facebookresearch/fastText) library for
efficient learning of word representations and sentence classification.
More details on the functionality of fastText can be found in the

- [fastText_updated_version](http://mlampros.github.io/2019/04/11/fastText_updated_version/)
  (blog post)
- [fasttext_language_identification](http://mlampros.github.io/2021/05/14/fasttext_language_identification/)
  (blog post)
- [package
  documentation](https://mlampros.github.io/fastText/reference/index.html).

<br>

The [official website of the fasttext algorithm](https://fasttext.cc/)
includes more details regarding the supervised & unsupervised functions.
The following image shows the difference between [**cbow** and
**skipgram**](https://fasttext.cc/docs/en/unsupervised-tutorial.html#advanced-readers-skipgram-versus-cbow)
(*models to compute word representations*)

<br>

![](./man/figures/skipgram_vs_cbow.png)

<br>

Moreover, the following figure - extracted from [a survey (scientific
paper) related to word
embeddings](https://hal.science/hal-03148517/document) and recent
advancements in Large Language Models - shows the differences between
*static* and *contextualized* word embeddings

<br>

![](./man/figures/static_contextualised_word_embeddings.png)

<br>

You can either install the package from CRAN using,

``` r

install.packages("fastText")
 
```

<br>

or from Github using the *install_github* function of the *remotes*
package,

``` r

remotes::install_github('mlampros/fastText')

```

<br>

**or** directly download the fastText-zip file using the **Clone or
download** button in the [repository
page](https://github.com/mlampros/fastText), extract it locally (rename
it to *fastText* if necessary and check that files such as DESCRIPTION,
NAMESPACE etc. are present when you open the fastText folder) and then
run,

``` r

#-------------
# on a Unix OS
#-------------

setwd('/your_folder/fastText/')
Rcpp::compileAttributes(verbose = TRUE)
setwd('/your_folder/')
system("R CMD build fastText")
system("R CMD INSTALL fastText_1.0.7.tar.gz")


#------------------
# on the Windows OS  
#------------------

setwd('C:/your_folder/fastText/')
Rcpp::compileAttributes(verbose = TRUE)
setwd('C:/your_folder/')
system("R CMD build fastText")
system("R CMD INSTALL fastText_1.0.7.tar.gz")
```

<br>

Use the following link to report bugs/issues (for the R package port),
<br><br>

<https://github.com/mlampros/fastText/issues>

<br>

### **Citation:**

If you use the **fastText** R package in your paper or research please
cite both **fastText** and the **original articles / software**
`https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=fastText`:

<br>

``` r
@Manual{,
  title = {{fastText}: Efficient Learning of Word Representations and
    Sentence Classification using R},
  author = {Lampros Mouselimis},
  year = {2026},
  note = {R package version 1.0.8},
  url = {https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=fastText},
}
```

<br>
