huggingface / huggingface/datasets

Introduce subset_name as an alias of config_name

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#7,637 4 comments 2 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
enhancement
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Python
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Description

### Feature request

Add support for `subset_name` as an alias for `config_name` in the datasets library and related tools (such as loading scripts, documentation, and metadata).

### Motivation

The Hugging Face Hub dataset viewer displays a column named **"Subset"**, which refers to what is currently technically called config_name in the datasets library. This inconsistency has caused confusion for many users, especially those unfamiliar with the internal terminology.

I have repeatedly received questions from users trying to understand what "config" means, and why it doesn’t match what they see as "subset" on the Hub. Renaming everything to `subset_name` might be too disruptive, but introducing subset_name as a clear alias for config_name could significantly improve user experience without breaking backward compatibility.

This change would:
- Align terminology across the Hub UI and datasets codebase
- Reduce user confusion, especially for newcomers
- Make documentation and examples more intuitive

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