What is the function to measure the quality of a split?

#1

Hi,
What is the function to measure the quality of a split in this xgboost implementation?
I didn’t find this info in the documentation.
In SKlearn, I know that the hyperparameter ‘criterion’ may be set to use a specific measure for the splitting.
Thanks!
MC

#2

XGBoost uses gradient boosting, where the gradient (partial derivative) of the loss function is used as a measure of quality of splits. See my master’s thesis at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0c0MbnP6Nn-eUNRRkVOOGpkbFk/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-nVw3WhovKW5FPvPM5GPHfg.

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