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Dev docs: listeners (#9061)
* Start Listeners documentation * intro tabel of different architectures * initialization, linking, dim inference * internal comm (WIP) * expand internal comm section * frozen components and replacing listeners * various small fixes * fix content table * fix link
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extra/DEVELOPER_DOCS/Listeners.md
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extra/DEVELOPER_DOCS/Listeners.md
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# Listeners
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1. [Overview](#1-overview)
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2. [Initialization](#2-initialization)
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- [A. Linking listeners to the embedding component](#2a-linking-listeners-to-the-embedding-component)
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- [B. Shape inference](#2b-shape-inference)
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3. [Internal communication](#3-internal-communication)
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- [A. During prediction](#3a-during-prediction)
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- [B. During training](#3b-during-training)
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- [C. Frozen components](#3c-frozen-components)
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4. [Replacing listener with standalone](#4-replacing-listener-with-standalone)
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## 1. Overview
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Trainable spaCy components typically use some sort of `tok2vec` layer as part of the `model` definition.
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This `tok2vec` layer produces embeddings and is either a standard `Tok2Vec` layer, or a Transformer-based one.
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Both versions can be used either inline/standalone, which means that they are defined and used
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by only one specific component (e.g. NER), or
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[shared](https://spacy.io/usage/embeddings-transformers#embedding-layers),
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in which case the embedding functionality becomes a separate component that can
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feed embeddings to multiple components downstream, using a listener-pattern.
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| Type | Usage | Model Architecture |
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| ------------- | ---------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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| `Tok2Vec` | standalone | [`spacy.Tok2Vec`](https://spacy.io/api/architectures#Tok2Vec) |
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| `Tok2Vec` | listener | [`spacy.Tok2VecListener`](https://spacy.io/api/architectures#Tok2VecListener) |
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| `Transformer` | standalone | [`spacy-transformers.Tok2VecTransformer`](https://spacy.io/api/architectures#Tok2VecTransformer) |
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| `Transformer` | listener | [`spacy-transformers.TransformerListener`](https://spacy.io/api/architectures#TransformerListener) |
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Here we discuss the listener pattern and its implementation in code in more detail.
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## 2. Initialization
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### 2A. Linking listeners to the embedding component
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To allow sharing a `tok2vec` layer, a separate `tok2vec` component needs to be defined in the config:
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```
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[components.tok2vec]
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factory = "tok2vec"
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[components.tok2vec.model]
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@architectures = "spacy.Tok2Vec.v2"
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```
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A listener can then be set up by making sure the correct `upstream` name is defined, referring to the
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name of the `tok2vec` component (which equals the factory name by default), or `*` as a wildcard:
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```
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[components.ner.model.tok2vec]
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@architectures = "spacy.Tok2VecListener.v1"
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upstream = "tok2vec"
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```
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When an [`nlp`](https://github.com/explosion/spaCy/blob/master/extra/DEVELOPER_DOCS/Language.md) object is
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initialized or deserialized, it will make sure to link each `tok2vec` component to its listeners. This is
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implemented in the method `nlp._link_components()` which loops over each
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component in the pipeline and calls `find_listeners()` on a component if it's defined.
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The [`tok2vec` component](https://github.com/explosion/spaCy/blob/master/spacy/pipeline/tok2vec.py)'s implementation
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of this `find_listener()` method will specifically identify sublayers of a model definition that are of type
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`Tok2VecListener` with a matching upstream name and will then add that listener to the internal `self.listener_map`.
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If it's a Transformer-based pipeline, a
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[`transformer` component](https://github.com/explosion/spacy-transformers/blob/master/spacy_transformers/pipeline_component.py)
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has a similar implementation but its `find_listener()` function will specifically look for `TransformerListener`
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sublayers of downstream components.
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### 2B. Shape inference
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Typically, the output dimension `nO` of a listener's model equals the `nO` (or `width`) of the upstream embedding layer.
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For a standard `Tok2Vec`-based component, this is typically known up-front and defined as such in the config:
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```
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[components.ner.model.tok2vec]
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@architectures = "spacy.Tok2VecListener.v1"
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width = ${components.tok2vec.model.encode.width}
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```
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A `transformer` component however only knows its `nO` dimension after the HuggingFace transformer
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is set with the function `model.attrs["set_transformer"]`,
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[implemented](https://github.com/explosion/spacy-transformers/blob/master/spacy_transformers/layers/transformer_model.py)
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by `set_pytorch_transformer`.
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This is why, upon linking of the transformer listeners, the `transformer` component also makes sure to set
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the listener's output dimension correctly.
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This shape inference mechanism also needs to happen with resumed/frozen components, which means that for some CLI
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commands (`assemble` and `train`), we need to call `nlp._link_components` even before initializing the `nlp`
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object. To cover all use-cases and avoid negative side effects, the code base ensures that performing the
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linking twice is not harmful.
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## 3. Internal communication
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The internal communication between a listener and its downstream components is organized by sending and
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receiving information across the components - either directly or implicitly.
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The details are different depending on whether the pipeline is currently training, or predicting.
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Either way, the `tok2vec` or `transformer` component always needs to run before the listener.
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### 3A. During prediction
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When the `Tok2Vec` pipeline component is called, its `predict()` method is executed to produce the results,
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which are then stored by `set_annotations()` in the `doc.tensor` field of the document(s).
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Similarly, the `Transformer` component stores the produced embeddings
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in `doc._.trf_data`. Next, the `forward` pass of a
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[`Tok2VecListener`](https://github.com/explosion/spaCy/blob/master/spacy/pipeline/tok2vec.py)
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or a
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[`TransformerListener`](https://github.com/explosion/spacy-transformers/blob/master/spacy_transformers/layers/listener.py)
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accesses these fields on the `Doc` directly. Both listener implementations have a fallback mechanism for when these
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properties were not set on the `Doc`: in that case an all-zero tensor is produced and returned.
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We need this fallback mechanism to enable shape inference methods in Thinc, but the code
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is slightly risky and at times might hide another bug - so it's a good spot to be aware of.
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### 3B. During training
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During training, the `update()` methods of the `Tok2Vec` & `Transformer` components don't necessarily set the
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annotations on the `Doc` (though since 3.1 they can if they are part of the `annotating_components` list in the config).
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Instead, we rely on a caching mechanism between the original embedding component and its listener.
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Specifically, the produced embeddings are sent to the listeners by calling `listener.receive()` and uniquely
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identifying the batch of documents with a `batch_id`. This `receive()` call also sends the appropriate `backprop`
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call to ensure that gradients from the downstream component flow back to the trainable `Tok2Vec` or `Transformer`
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network.
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We rely on the `nlp` object properly batching the data and sending each batch through the pipeline in sequence,
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which means that only one such batch needs to be kept in memory for each listener.
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When the downstream component runs and the listener should produce embeddings, it accesses the batch in memory,
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runs the backpropagation, and returns the results and the gradients.
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There are two ways in which this mechanism can fail, both are detected by `verify_inputs()`:
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- `E953` if a different batch is in memory than the requested one - signaling some kind of out-of-sync state of the
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training pipeline.
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- `E954` if no batch is in memory at all - signaling that the pipeline is probably not set up correctly.
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#### Training with multiple listeners
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One `Tok2Vec` or `Transformer` component may be listened to by several downstream components, e.g.
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a tagger and a parser could be sharing the same embeddings. In this case, we need to be careful about how we do
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the backpropagation. When the `Tok2Vec` or `Transformer` sends out data to the listener with `receive()`, they will
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send an `accumulate_gradient` function call to all listeners, except the last one. This function will keep track
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of the gradients received so far. Only the final listener in the pipeline will get an actual `backprop` call that
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will initiate the backpropagation of the `tok2vec` or `transformer` model with the accumulated gradients.
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### 3C. Frozen components
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The listener pattern can get particularly tricky in combination with frozen components. To detect components
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with listeners that are not frozen consistently, `init_nlp()` (which is called by `spacy train`) goes through
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the listeners and their upstream components and warns in two scenarios.
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#### The Tok2Vec or Transformer is frozen
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If the `Tok2Vec` or `Transformer` was already trained,
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e.g. by [pretraining](https://spacy.io/usage/embeddings-transformers#pretraining),
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it could be a valid use-case to freeze the embedding architecture and only train downstream components such
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as a tagger or a parser. This used to be impossible before 3.1, but has become supported since then by putting the
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embedding component in the [`annotating_components`](https://spacy.io/usage/training#annotating-components)
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list of the config. This works like any other "annotating component" because it relies on the `Doc` attributes.
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However, if the `Tok2Vec` or `Transformer` is frozen, and not present in `annotating_components`, and a related
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listener isn't frozen, then a `W086` warning is shown and further training of the pipeline will likely end with `E954`.
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#### The upstream component is frozen
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If an upstream component is frozen but the underlying `Tok2Vec` or `Transformer` isn't, the performance of
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the upstream component will be degraded after training. In this case, a `W087` warning is shown, explaining
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how to use the `replace_listeners` functionality to prevent this problem.
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## 4. Replacing listener with standalone
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The [`replace_listeners`](https://spacy.io/api/language#replace_listeners) functionality changes the architecture
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of a downstream component from using a listener pattern to a standalone `tok2vec` or `transformer` layer,
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effectively making the downstream component independent of any other components in the pipeline.
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It is implemented by `nlp.replace_listeners()` and typically executed by `nlp.from_config()`.
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First, it fetches the original `Model` of the original component that creates the embeddings:
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```
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tok2vec = self.get_pipe(tok2vec_name)
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tok2vec_model = tok2vec.model
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```
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Which is either a [`Tok2Vec` model](https://github.com/explosion/spaCy/blob/master/spacy/ml/models/tok2vec.py) or a
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[`TransformerModel`](https://github.com/explosion/spacy-transformers/blob/master/spacy_transformers/layers/transformer_model.py).
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In the case of the `tok2vec`, this model can be copied as-is into the configuration and architecture of the
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downstream component. However, for the `transformer`, this doesn't work.
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The reason is that the `TransformerListener` architecture chains the listener with
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[`trfs2arrays`](https://github.com/explosion/spacy-transformers/blob/master/spacy_transformers/layers/trfs2arrays.py):
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```
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model = chain(
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TransformerListener(upstream_name=upstream)
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trfs2arrays(pooling, grad_factor),
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)
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```
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but the standalone `Tok2VecTransformer` has an additional `split_trf_batch` chained inbetween the model
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and `trfs2arrays`:
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```
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model = chain(
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TransformerModel(name, get_spans, tokenizer_config),
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split_trf_batch(),
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trfs2arrays(pooling, grad_factor),
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)
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```
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So you can't just take the model from the listener, and drop that into the component internally. You need to
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adjust the model and the config. To facilitate this, `nlp.replace_listeners()` will check whether additional
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[functions](https://github.com/explosion/spacy-transformers/blob/master/spacy_transformers/layers/_util.py) are
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[defined](https://github.com/explosion/spacy-transformers/blob/master/spacy_transformers/layers/transformer_model.py)
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in `model.attrs`, and if so, it will essentially call these to make the appropriate changes:
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```
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replace_func = tok2vec_model.attrs["replace_listener_cfg"]
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new_config = replace_func(tok2vec_cfg["model"], pipe_cfg["model"]["tok2vec"])
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...
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new_model = tok2vec_model.attrs["replace_listener"](new_model)
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```
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The new config and model are then properly stored on the `nlp` object.
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Note that this functionality (running the replacement for a transformer listener) was broken prior to
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`spacy-transformers` 1.0.5.
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