[FEATURE] Download Data Sources from HuggingFace

[TheCedarPrince]

In discussion with @ParamThakkar123, we realized that distributing data sources from HuggingFace is quite important! Here is an issue describing how we should build this out:

Issue Description

Difficulty: Intermediate
Time: 12 - 15 hours

Description:
This issue aims to extend HealthSampleData.jl with automatic dataset fetching and management capabilities using HuggingFaceHub.jl and DataDeps.jl. Currently, users must manually download datasets (e.g., synthea_1M_3YR.duckdb) from external sources.
With this enhancement, users will be able to run:

using HealthSampleData
path = HealthSampleData.load("synthea_1M_3YR") # Or something like this

and have the dataset automatically downloaded, cached, and reproducibly managed using Hugging Face and DataDeps.

---

Requirements

• Add dependencies

  • Add HuggingFaceHub.jl and DataDeps.jl to Project.toml.
  • Ensure both packages are available and compatible with at least Julia 1.10.

• Create dataset registration helpers for HuggingFaceHub.jl

  • Implement a function _huggingface_dataset_register(name::String, repo::String, filename::String).

  • Use HF.info(HF.Dataset, repo) to locate dataset metadata and HF.file_download() to retrieve files.

  • Register the dataset using DataDeps.jl (you'll need to consult the documentation here):

    register(DataDep(
        name,
        """
        JuliaHealth synthetic dataset (1M patients, 3 years of data).
        Source: https://huggingface.co/JuliaHealthOrg/JuliaHealthDatasets
        """,
        "https://huggingface.co/datasets/JuliaHealthOrg/JuliaHealthDatasets/resolve/main/synthea_1M_3YR.duckdb";
        post_fetch_method = somethingsomething
    ))

• Register JuliaHealthDatasets as DataDeps

• Documentation

  • Update README.md with:

    • Installation instructions for HuggingFaceHub.jl and DataDeps.jl.
    • Examples of dataset loading and caching.
    • Instructions for setting Hugging Face tokens.

---

Expected Outcomes

The implemented functionality should:

1. Automatically download datasets from Hugging Face Hub using HuggingFaceHub.jl.
2. Cache and manage datasets locally using DataDeps.jl.
3. Provide a reproducible and Julia-native dataset management workflow.

---

Example Implementation

using HuggingFaceHub, DataDeps

function _huggingface_dataset_register(name::String, repo::String, filename::String)
    dataset = HF.info(HF.Dataset, repo)
    HF.file_download(dataset, filename)

end

#= 

Register DataDep later using information

=# 

    register(DataDep(
        name,
        "Dataset from Hugging Face repository $(repo).",
        "https://huggingface.co/datasets/$(repo)/resolve/main/$(filename)";
        post_fetch_method = identity
    ))

Example user workflow:

julia> using HealthSampleData
julia> path = HealthSampleData.load("synthea_1M_3YR")
Downloading dataset from Hugging Face...
100% complete!
@info "Dataset available at /home/datadeps/synthea_1M_3YR.duckdb"

You can then open the dataset as:

using DuckDB
con = DBInterface.connect(DuckDB.DB, path)

---

Future Extensions

• Data versioning using Hugging Face revision tags.
• Command-line interface (healthdata list, healthdata download) for dataset management.

---

References

• [HuggingFaceHub.jl Documentation](https://github.com/FluxML/HuggingFaceHub.jl)
• [DataDeps.jl Documentation](https://github.com/oxinabox/DataDeps.jl)
• [JuliaHealth Datasets on Hugging Face](https://huggingface.co/JuliaHealthOrg/JuliaHealthDatasets)