is there a way to download only part of a datalad dataset?

Question

For example:

datalad install -g ///adhd200/RawData/Brown downloads the entire dataset.

But lets say I only want:

RawData / Brown / 0026001 / session_1 / anat_1

Is there a way to achieve this?

Answer 1

Yes, but you have to use two commands. Here is the complete code (confirmed to work with the current DataLad release 0.12):

datalad clone ///adhd200/RawData/Brown
datalad -C Brown get 0026001/session_1/anat_1

Instead of install --get-data, first clone the dataset (you can also keep using install, but strip the -g option). This will obtain the "empty" dataset only (which is fast and lean). Then follow it up with a get for the files you are interested in. The -C changes the working directory to the root of the Brown dataset -- just like Git's -C option.