diff --git a/paddle/framework/tensor.h b/paddle/framework/tensor.h
index fc54ed697f685f048ee542aa2bebe91e03c6f76c..19051db539d3e3ba1ff840800c8ff6dec1d02eed 100644
--- a/paddle/framework/tensor.h
+++ b/paddle/framework/tensor.h
@@ -162,7 +162,10 @@ class Tensor {
   /*! points to dimensions of memory block. */
   DDim dims_;
 
-  /*! the element count of tensor. */
+  /**
+   * A cache of the number of elements in a tensor.
+   * Would be 0 for an uninitialized tensor.
+   */
   int64_t numel_;
 
   /**
diff --git a/paddle/framework/tensor_impl.h b/paddle/framework/tensor_impl.h
index 03678784b460d44a592a2dbfdff5f058d0d42bf8..5e32bfcac69370fee65f20df2b153f84ae7b5df5 100644
--- a/paddle/framework/tensor_impl.h
+++ b/paddle/framework/tensor_impl.h
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ inline void Tensor::check_memory_size() const {
   PADDLE_ENFORCE_NOT_NULL(
       holder_, "Tenosr holds no memory. Call Tensor::mutable_data first.");
   PADDLE_ENFORCE_GE(
-      holder_->size(), numel_ * sizeof(T) + offset_,
+      holder_->size(), numel() * sizeof(T) + offset_,
       "Tensor's dims_ is out of bound. Call Tensor::mutable_data "
       "first to re-allocate memory.\n"
       "or maybe the required data-type mismatches the data already stored.");
@@ -54,11 +54,11 @@ inline T* Tensor::mutable_data(DDim dims, platform::Place place) {
 template <typename T>
 inline T* Tensor::mutable_data(platform::Place place) {
   static_assert(std::is_pod<T>::value, "T must be POD");
-  PADDLE_ENFORCE_GT(numel_, 0,
+  PADDLE_ENFORCE_GT(numel(), 0,
                     "Tensor's numel must be larger than zero to call "
                     "Tensor::mutable_data. Call Tensor::set_dim first.");
   /* some versions of boost::variant don't have operator!= */
-  int64_t size = numel_ * sizeof(T);
+  int64_t size = numel() * sizeof(T);
   if (holder_ == nullptr || !(holder_->place() == place) ||
       holder_->size() < size + offset_) {
     if (platform::is_cpu_place(place)) {
@@ -131,7 +131,7 @@ inline Tensor Tensor::Slice(const int& begin_idx, const int& end_idx) const {
   PADDLE_ENFORCE_LT(begin_idx, end_idx,
                     "Begin index must be less than end index.");
   PADDLE_ENFORCE_NE(dims_[0], 1, "Can not slice a tensor with dims_[0] = 1.");
-  size_t base = numel_ / dims_[0];
+  size_t base = numel() / dims_[0];
   Tensor dst;
   dst.holder_ = holder_;
   DDim dst_dims = dims_;