As of RapidMiner 5.1.11, we have introduced a new kind of I/O-Object in RapidMiner: File Objects. File Objects are generated by opening local files, URLs, looping over directories or ZIP files, etc. They are then parsed by Read CSV or Read Excel and converted to an example set. All this was possible before, partly by using macros, but it is now much simpler and more flexible.

Foremost, however, it offers a new way of sending input data to a process exposed as a Web service in RapidAnalytics: The body of the HTTP POST request is transformed into such a File Object and can then be parsed as a part of the process. This makes the definition of the input format of a Web service very flexible and provides a simple means to create Web services that classify data tables.

Watch this video for more details: