Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques, 3rd Edition

8.4 Rule-Based Classification

In this section, we look at rule-based classifiers, where the learned model is represented as a set of IF-THEN rules. We first examine how such rules are used for classification (Section 8.4.1). We then study ways in which they can be generated, either from a decision tree (Section 8.4.2) or directly from the training data using a sequential covering algorithm (Section 8.4.3).

8.4.1 Using IF-THEN Rules for Classification

Rules are a good way of representing information or bits of knowledge. A rule-based classifier uses a set of IF-THEN rules for classification. An IF-THEN rule is an expression of the form

IF condition THEN conclusion.

An example is rule ,

The “IF” part (or left side) of a rule is known as the ...