# Understand Tensor Axis and Shape with Examples: A Beginner Guide – TensorFlow Tutorial

By | November 15, 2019

Tensor axis and shape are very important when we are computing in tensorflow. What are relationship between them? In this tutorial, we will discuss.

## What is tensor axis?

The tensor axis describes the demension of a tensor.

For example, if a tensor is a 4-dimension, which means its axis = [0, 1, 2, 3]

Set dimension of a tensor is n.  The axis of a tensor will be axis = [0, 1, 2, …, n-1]

## What is tensor shape?

Tensor shape indicates the element size on each axis or demension.

For example, if the shape of a tensor is [ 2, 3, 4], which means this tensor axis = [0, 1, 2] and there are 2 elements on axis = 0, 3 elements on axis = 2 and 4 elements on axis = 3.

## The relation of tensor axis and shape.

Suppose a tensor shape is: shape = [x, y, z, …], its axis = [0, 1, 2, …]

Understand the relation between axis and shape, we will can understand aixs parameter in some tensorflow functions.

For example, tf.reduce_sum() will return different result on different axis.

Here is an example.

## Create a 3*4 tensor

import tensorflow as tf
import numpy as np

#w=shape(3,4)
w = tf.Variable(np.array([[1, 2, 3, 4],[5, 6, 7, 8],[9, 10, 11, 12]]), dtype = tf.float32)

## Sum this tensor on different axis

sum on axis = 0

sum_1 = tf.reduce_sum(w, axis = 0)

The result will be:

array([ 15.,  18.,  21.,  24.], dtype=float32)

Why? Because shape = [3, 4], there are 3 elements on axis = 0.

Which sums

[1, 2, 3, 4] + [5, 6, 7, 8] + [9, 10, 11, 12] = [15, 18, 21, 24]

Sum tensor on axis = 1

sum_2 = tf.reduce_sum(w, axis = 1)

The result will be:

array([ 10.,  26.,  42.], dtype=float32)

Because there are 4 elements on axis = 1, which means

sum([1, 2, 3, 4]) = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10

sum([5, 6, 7, 8]) = 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 = 26

sum([9, 10, 11, 12]) = 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 = 42