Oh then this should just work
cp -R --link b a/You can achieve the same symbol link link from python as well

What I’d like is to do Dataset.get(“b”, to=‘a’) and have the download land the files directly there

As a result, I need to do somethig which copies the files (e.g. cp -r or StorageManager.upload_folder(‘b’, ‘a’)
but this is expensive

You are saying the copy is just wasteful (but you do have the files locally)?

Oh maybe:
cp -R b a/

if the state is :
a:
a a/.DS_Store a/1.txt a/b a/b/.DS_Store a/b/1.txt a/b/c a/b/c/1.txtDataset B:
b b/2.txt b/c b/c/2.txtThen the command
mv b a/returns error since a/ is not empty.
That’s exactly the issue…

As a result, I need to do somethig which copies the files (e.g. cp -r or StorageManager.upload_folder(‘b’, ‘a’)
but this is expensive

so moving b in to a won’t work if some subfolders are already there

I though that if they are already there you would merge / overwrite, isn't that what you need ?
a/b/c/2.txt seems like the result of moving b from dataset B into folder b in Dataset A, what am I missing?
(My assumption is that you have both datasets locally on the same machine and that you can just copy the files from b of Datasset B into b folder of Dataset A)

AgitatedDove14 mv command requires empty folders… so moving b in to a won’t work if some subfolders are already there

RoughTiger69
move the files locally (i.e. based on the example move folder b into folder a ) Create a new version with two parents ('a' and 'b') then sync the local root folder ('a' in your case). Only the meta-data should change (because the referenced files are already in one of the datasets)wdyt?

AgitatedDove14 ideas?

Yes, but this is not the use-case.
The use-case is that I have a local folder and I want to merge a dataset into it without re-fetching the local folder…

Hi RoughTiger69 ,

If you create a child version and add the delta of the files to the child, fetching the child version will also fetch the parents files as well