abalone.data is the Abalone dataset from the UCI Machine Learning Repository. It is used here as a small regression example: the first column (Sex) is a categorical input feature, and the last column (Rings) is the numeric target.

Source: https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/machine-learning-databases/abalone/abalone.data

Dataset page: https://archive.ics.uci.edu/dataset/1/abalone

Citation: Nash, W., Sellers, T., Talbot, S., Cawthorn, A., & Ford, W. (1994). Abalone. UCI Machine Learning Repository. https://doi.org/10.24432/C55C7W