DATALAD-METADATA(1)

💖 datalad metadata — the manual page, but make it bestie-coded 💖

okay so you're reading the datalad metadata(1) page from the General Commands Manual and honestly? iconic of you. sit down, grab a strawberry 🍓, and let's get into it.

---

✨ NAME ✨

datalad metadata — metadata reporting for files and entire datasets 🦋

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

datalad metadata [-h] [-d DATASET] [--get-aggregates] [--reporton TYPE]
       [-r] [--version] [PATH ...]

---

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so there are two types of metadata that this thing supports, and you're gonna want to know both:

1. metadata describing a dataset as a whole — that's the dataset-global metadata 👑
2. metadata for files in a dataset — that's content metadata 📁

and bestie, both types can be accessed with this command. no switching apps, no drama.

Examples, because we love a demo:

Report the metadata of a single file, as aggregated into the closest locally available dataset, containing the query path:

% datalad metadata somedir/subdir/thisfile.dat

Sometimes it is helpful to get metadata records formatted in a more accessible form, here as pretty-printed JSON:

% datalad -f json_pp metadata somedir/subdir/thisfile.dat

Same query as above, but specify which dataset to query (must be containing the query path):

% datalad metadata -d . somedir/subdir/thisfile.dat

Report any metadata record of any dataset known to the queried dataset:

% datalad metadata --recursive --reporton datasets

Get a JSON-formatted report of aggregated metadata in a dataset, incl. information on enabled metadata extractors, dataset versions, dataset IDs, and dataset paths:

% datalad -f json metadata --get-aggregates

---

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• PATH — path(s) to query metadata for. Constraints: value must be a string 🛣️
• -h, --help, --help-np — show this help message. --help-np forcefully disables the use of a pager for displaying the help message 🙈 (yes, forcefully. it said what it said.)
• -d DATASET, --dataset DATASET — dataset to query. If given, metadata will be reported as stored in this dataset. Otherwise, the closest available dataset containing a query path will be consulted. Constraints: Value must be a Dataset or a valid identifier of a Dataset (e.g. a path) 🎯
• --get-aggregates — if set, yields all (sub)datasets for which aggregate metadata are available in the dataset. No other action is performed, even if other arguments are given. The reported results contain a datasets's ID, the commit hash at which metadata aggregation was performed, and the location of the object file(s) containing the aggregated metadata. like, it's a one-track mind and we respect it 💅
• --reporton TYPE — choose on what type result to report on: 'datasets', 'files', 'all' (both datasets and files), or 'none' (no report). Constraints: value must be one of ('all', 'datasets', 'files', 'none') [Default: 'all'] 📊
• -r, --recursive — if set, recurse into potential subdataset. going deeper 🌀
• --version — show the module and its version which provides the command 🔢

---

✨ AUTHORS ✨

datalad is developed by The DataLad Team and Contributors <team@datalad.org>. 🫶 absolute legends, no cap.

---

💌 and that's the whole vibe check. go query some metadata, you're doing amazing sweetie.

datalad metadata 0.15.5 — 2022-02-10 🌈✨ that's the version and date this page is serving, periodt. 💖