Manual Configuration

This guide will show you how to configure a custom structure for your dataset repository. The companion collection of example datasets showcases each section of the documentation.

A dataset with a supported structure and file formats automatically has a Dataset Viewer on its dataset page on the Hub. You can use YAML to define the splits, subsets and builder parameters that are used by the Viewer.

It is also possible to define multiple subsets (also called “configurations”) for the same dataset (e.g. if the dataset has various independent files).

Splits

If you have multiple files and want to define which file goes into which split, you can use YAML at the top of your README.md.

For example, given a repository like this one:

my_dataset_repository/
├── README.md
├── data.csv
└── holdout.csv

You can define a subset for your splits by adding the configs field in the YAML block at the top of your README.md:

---
configs:
- config_name: default
  data_files:
  - split: train
    path: "data.csv"
  - split: test
    path: "holdout.csv"
---

You can select multiple files per split using a list of paths:

my_dataset_repository/
├── README.md
├── data/
│   ├── abc.csv
│   └── def.csv
└── holdout/
    └── ghi.csv

---
configs:
- config_name: default
  data_files:
  - split: train
    path:
    - "data/abc.csv"
    - "data/def.csv"
  - split: test
    path: "holdout/ghi.csv"
---

Or you can use glob patterns to automatically list all the files you need:

---
configs:
- config_name: default
  data_files:
  - split: train
    path: "data/*.csv"
  - split: test
    path: "holdout/*.csv"
---

Multiple Subsets

Your dataset might have several subsets of data that you want to be able to use separately. For example each subset has its own dropdown in the Dataset Viewer the Hugging Face Hub.

In that case you can define a list of subsets inside the configs field in YAML:

my_dataset_repository/
├── README.md
├── main_data.csv
└── additional_data.csv

---
configs:
- config_name: main_data
  data_files: "main_data.csv"
- config_name: additional_data
  data_files: "additional_data.csv"
---

- config_name: main_data
  data_files: "main_data.csv"
  default: true

Builder parameters

Not only data_files, but other builder-specific parameters can be passed via YAML, allowing for more flexibility on how to load the data while not requiring any custom code. For example, define which separator to use in which subset to load your csv files:

---
configs:
- config_name: tab
  data_files: "main_data.csv"
  sep: "\t"
- config_name: comma
  data_files: "additional_data.csv"
  sep: ","
---

Refer to the specific builders’ documentation to see what parameters they have.