Model trees, which are a type of decision tree with linear regression
functions at the leaves, form the basis of a recent successful techniq
ue for predicting continuous numeric values. They can be applied to cl
assification problems by employing a standard method of transforming a
classification problem into a problem of function approximation. Surp
risingly, using this simple transformation the model tree inducer M5',
based on Quinlan's M5, generates more accurate classifiers than the s
tate-of-the-art decision tree learner C5.0, particularly when most of
the attributes are numeric.