datalad create
Synopsis
datalad create [-h] [-f] [-D DESCRIPTION] [-d DATASET] [--no-annex] [--fake-dates]
[-c PROC] [--version] [PATH] ...
Description
Create a new dataset from scratch.
This command initializes a new dataset at a given location, or the current directory. The new dataset can optionally be registered in an existing superdataset (the new dataset’s path needs to be located within the superdataset for that, and the superdataset needs to be given explicitly via –dataset). It is recommended to provide a brief description to label the dataset’s nature and location, e.g. “Michael’s music on black laptop”. This helps humans to identify data locations in distributed scenarios. By default an identifier comprised of user and machine name, plus path will be generated.
This command only creates a new dataset, it does not add existing content to it, even if the target directory already contains additional files or directories.
Plain Git repositories can be created via –no-annex. However, the result will not be a full dataset, and, consequently, not all features are supported (e.g. a description).
To create a local version of a remote dataset use the install command instead.
- NOTE
Power-user info: This command uses git init and git annex init to prepare the new dataset. Registering to a superdataset is performed via a git submodule add operation in the discovered superdataset.
Examples
Create a dataset ‘mydataset’ in the current directory:
% datalad create mydataset
Apply the text2git procedure upon creation of a dataset:
% datalad create -c text2git mydataset
Create a subdataset in the root of an existing dataset:
% datalad create -d . mysubdataset
Create a dataset in an existing, non-empty directory:
% datalad create --force
Create a plain Git repository:
% datalad create --no-annex mydataset
Options
PATH
path where the dataset shall be created, directories will be created as necessary. If no location is provided, a dataset will be created in the location specified by –dataset (if given) or the current working directory. Either way the command will error if the target directory is not empty. Use –force to create a dataset in a non-empty directory. Constraints: value must be a string or Value must be a Dataset or a valid identifier of a Dataset (e.g. a path) or value must be NONE
INIT OPTIONS
options to pass to git init. Any argument specified after the destination path of the repository will be passed to git-init as-is. Note that not all options will lead to viable results. For example ‘–bare’ will not yield a repository where DataLad can adjust files in its working tree.
-h, --help, --help-np
show this help message. –help-np forcefully disables the use of a pager for displaying the help message
-f, --force
enforce creation of a dataset in a non-empty directory.
-D DESCRIPTION, --description DESCRIPTION
short description to use for a dataset location. Its primary purpose is to help humans to identify a dataset copy (e.g., “mike’s dataset on lab server”). Note that when a dataset is published, this information becomes available on the remote side. Constraints: value must be a string or value must be NONE
-d DATASET, --dataset DATASET
specify the dataset to perform the create operation on. If a dataset is given along with PATH, a new subdataset will be created in it at the path provided to the create command. If a dataset is given but PATH is unspecified, a new dataset will be created at the location specified by this option. Constraints: Value must be a Dataset or a valid identifier of a Dataset (e.g. a path) or value must be NONE
--no-annex
if set, a plain Git repository will be created without any annex.
--fake-dates
Configure the repository to use fake dates. The date for a new commit will be set to one second later than the latest commit in the repository. This can be used to anonymize dates.
-c PROC, --cfg-proc PROC
Run cfg_PROC procedure(s) (can be specified multiple times) on the created dataset. Use run-procedure –discover to get a list of available procedures, such as cfg_text2git.
--version
show the module and its version which provides the command