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SSS4Rec

This repository contains the code used in our SIGIR 2026 paper Pay Attention to Sequence Split: Uncovering the Impacts of Sub-Sequence Splitting on Sequential Recommendation Models.

1. Repository Structure

The codebase is organized into two parallel frameworks corresponding to two dominant sub-sequence splitting (SSS) paradigms in sequential recommendation.

SSS/
├── Multi_Target_Implementation/
│   ├── data/                     # Raw and preprocessed datasets
│   └── src/                      # Multi-target training framework
│
├── Single_Target_Implementation/
│   ├── data/                     # Raw datasets
│   └── src/                      # Single-target training framework
│
└── README.md

Design Rationale

  • Single-Target Implementation
    Sub-sequences are generated on-the-fly during training, and each training instance predicts one next item.

  • Multi-Target Implementation
    Sub-sequences are generated offline before training and saved as processed dataset files.

This separation is intentional: it reflects two different implementation paradigms adopted by prior sequential recommendation codebases, and allows us to study the effect of data splitting without conflating it with other training-pipeline differences.

2. Multi-Target Data Preprocessing

Important: The multi-target framework requires offline preprocessing before training. Raw data should not be used directly for training in this framework.

Raw Data Location

Raw dataset files should be placed in:

Multi_Target_Implementation/data/

Preprocessing Script

The preprocessing script is:

preprocess_data.py

It reads a raw user-item interaction file and generates an augmented dataset according to the specified splitting strategy.

Supported Augmentation Types

augment_type Description
none Use the raw sequence without splitting
pre Prefix-based splitting
suffix Suffix-based splitting
slide Sliding-window splitting
slide_plus_full Sliding-window splitting plus the original full sequence

Sliding-related Arguments

Argument Description
slide_window Window size of each sub-sequence
slide_step Step size between adjacent windows
slide_keep_tail Whether to keep tail sequences shorter than one window

Example Preprocessing Commands

python preprocess_data.py \
  --data_dir ../data/ \
  --data_name Beauty \
  --augment_type slide_plus_full \
  --slide_window 3 \
  --slide_step 1

python preprocess_data.py \
  --data_dir ../data/ \
  --data_name CDs \
  --augment_type slide \
  --slide_window 5 \
  --slide_step 1

python preprocess_data.py \
  --data_dir ../data/ \
  --data_name ML-1M \
  --augment_type pre

python preprocess_data.py \
  --data_dir ../data/ \
  --data_name Douyin \
  --augment_type suffix

Generated Output Files

The processed files are saved in the same data directory. Typical filenames include:

Beauty_pre.txt
Beauty_suffix.txt
Beauty_slide_win3_step1.txt
Beauty_slide_plus_full_win3_step1.txt
CDs_slide_win5_step1.txt
ML-1M_pre.txt

Recommended Sliding Window Sizes

Because sequence-length distributions differ substantially across datasets, we do not use a unified sliding-window size. The following settings correspond to the configurations used in our experiments.

Dataset Recommended Window Size
Beauty 3
Sports_and_Outdoors 3
CDs 5
ML-1M 10
Douyin 5
LastFM 5

In general, shorter and denser sequence datasets prefer smaller windows, while datasets with longer user histories can benefit from larger windows.

3. Single-Target Implementation

Overview

The single-target framework follows the on-the-fly splitting paradigm:

  • each training instance predicts exactly one next item
  • sub-sequence splitting, if enabled, is performed during training-time data loading
  • no preprocessing is required

Raw Data Usage

Single-target training uses the raw dataset directly. There is no need to run any preprocessing script in advance.

Supported Models

The following models are supported in the single-target framework:

  • SASRec
  • BSARec
  • FMLPRec
  • GRU4Rec

Supported Arguments

Argument Options / Meaning
model_type SASRec, BSARec, FMLPRec, GRU4Rec
loss_type BCE, CE
augment_type ori, pre, suffix, slide
data_name Dataset name
model_idx Run index / random seed
train_name Log and checkpoint name

Augmentation Types

augment_type Description
ori Use the original training sequence without sub-sequence splitting
pre Generate prefix-based training samples on-the-fly
suffix Generate suffix-based training samples on-the-fly
slide Generate sliding-window training samples on-the-fly

Choosing Sliding Window Size

For slide augmentation, the recommended window sizes are:

Dataset Recommended Window Size
Beauty 3
Sports_and_Outdoors 3
CDs 5
ML-1M 10
Douyin 5
LastFM 5

Example Training Commands

python main.py \
  --model_type SASRec \
  --loss_type BCE \
  --augment_type ori \
  --model_idx 1 \
  --data_name Beauty \
  --train_name SASRec_Beauty_ori

python main.py \
  --model_type SASRec \
  --loss_type BCE \
  --augment_type pre \
  --model_idx 1 \
  --data_name Beauty \
  --train_name SASRec_Beauty_pre

python main.py \
  --model_type SASRec \
  --loss_type BCE \
  --augment_type slide \
  --model_idx 1 \
  --data_name Beauty \
  --train_name SASRec_Beauty_slide

python main.py \
  --model_type GRU4Rec \
  --loss_type BCE \
  --augment_type ori \
  --model_idx 1 \
  --data_name Beauty \
  --train_name GRU4Rec_Beauty_ori

python main.py \
  --model_type BSARec \
  --loss_type CE \
  --augment_type ori \
  --model_idx 1 \
  --data_name ML-1M \
  --train_name BSARec_ML1M_ori

python main.py \
  --model_type FMLPRec \
  --loss_type CE \
  --augment_type suffix \
  --model_idx 1 \
  --data_name CDs \
  --train_name FMLPRec_CDs_suffix

4. Multi-Target Implementation

Overview

The multi-target framework follows the offline preprocessing paradigm:

  • sub-sequences are generated before training
  • training is performed on the generated files
  • different augmentation strategies correspond to different processed datasets

Supported Models

The following models are supported in the multi-target framework:

  • SASRec
  • BSARec
  • FMLPRec
  • GRU4Rec

Representative Training Commands

BSARec

python main.py \
  --model_name BSARec \
  --loss_type CE \
  --c 5 \
  --alpha 0.7 \
  --lr 0.001 \
  --num_attention_heads 1 \
  --augment_type None \
  --model_idx 1 \
  --data_name CDs \
  --gpu_id 3

python main.py \
  --model_name BSARec \
  --loss_type CE \
  --c 9 \
  --alpha 0.3 \
  --lr 0.0005 \
  --num_attention_heads 4 \
  --augment_type None \
  --model_idx 1 \
  --data_name ML-1M \
  --gpu_id 0

python main.py \
  --model_name BSARec \
  --c 3 \
  --alpha 0.9 \
  --lr 0.001 \
  --num_attention_heads 1 \
  --augment_type None \
  --model_idx 2 \
  --data_name Douyin \
  --gpu_id 0

python main.py \
  --model_name BSARec \
  --c 3 \
  --alpha 0.9 \
  --lr 0.001 \
  --num_attention_heads 1 \
  --augment_type None \
  --model_idx 2 \
  --data_name LastFM \
  --gpu_id 3

python main.py \
  --model_name BSARec \
  --c 5 \
  --alpha 0.3 \
  --lr 0.001 \
  --num_attention_heads 4 \
  --augment_type None \
  --model_idx 2 \
  --data_name Sports_and_Outdoors \
  --gpu_id 0

python main.py \
  --model_name BSARec \
  --c 5 \
  --alpha 0.7 \
  --lr 0.0005 \
  --num_attention_heads 1 \
  --augment_type None \
  --model_idx 2 \
  --data_name Beauty \
  --gpu_id 3

FMLPRec

python main.py \
  --model_name FMLPRec \
  --num_hidden_layers 4 \
  --loss_type CE \
  --augment_type slide_plus_full_win3_step1 \
  --model_idx 1 \
  --data_name Beauty \
  --gpu_id 0

SASRec

python main.py \
  --model_name SASRec \
  --loss_type CE \
  --augment_type slide_plus_full_win5_step1 \
  --model_idx 1 \
  --data_name Douyin \
  --gpu_id 0

python main.py \
  --model_name SASRec \
  --loss_type CE \
  --augment_type slide_plus_full_win3_step1 \
  --model_idx 1 \
  --data_name Beauty \
  --gpu_id 0

Hyperparameter Notes

  • For BSARec, we follow the original paper setup and tune c, alpha, learning rate, and the number of attention heads according to each dataset.
  • For SASRec, GRU4Rec, and FMLPRec, the key hyperparameters also follow the original paper settings as closely as possible.
  • Dataset-specific tuning is applied when necessary, and the representative commands above reflect the configurations used in the paper.

5. Experimental Protocol

To ensure fair and leakage-free evaluation, we use the following protocol in both frameworks.

No Information Leakage

  • Sub-sequence splitting / augmentation is applied only to the training set
  • Validation and test sets are not augmented
  • Future interactions are never included in training inputs

Evaluation on Complete Sequences

Although training may use split sub-sequences, validation and test are always performed on the complete original user sequence under the standard evaluation protocol.

Concretely:

  • the validation target is taken from the held-out interaction near the end of the original sequence
  • the test target is taken from the final held-out interaction
  • the model is evaluated using the user's full observable history before the target

Consistency Across Frameworks

Although the single-target and multi-target frameworks differ in how training data is generated, they share:

  • the same original dataset split
  • the same validation / test protocol
  • the same ranking-based evaluation setting

Therefore, differences in results are attributable to the training-time effect of sub-sequence splitting, rather than inconsistencies in evaluation.

6. Acknowledgement

This codebase is built upon and inspired by the following excellent works:

We thank the authors for releasing high-quality, reproducible implementations.

7. Citation

@inproceedings{dang2026pay,
  title={Pay Attention to Sequence Split: Uncovering the Impacts of Sub-Sequence Splitting on Sequential Recommendation Models},
  author={Dang, Yizhou and Wu, Yifan and Huang, Minhan and Zhao, Chuang and Ma, Lianbo and Guo, Guibing and Wang, Xingwei and Sun, Zhu},
  journal={Proceedings of the 49th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval},
  year={2026}
}