The optimal combination of feature selection and data discretization: An empirical study.

•The best combination of feature selection and discretization is identified.•Particularly, there are two different orderings of combining the two data pre-processing steps.•Three feature selection and four discretizers are used for performance comparison.•Performing MDLP first and C4.5 second is the better choice for the SVM classifier.•Performing C4.5 first and MDLP second is recommended for the DT classifier.