Implementation:Huggingface Datasets Dataset Rename Column

Knowledge Sources	Huggingface Datasets HF Datasets Docs
Domains	Data_Engineering, ML_Preprocessing
Last Updated	2026-02-14 18:00 GMT

Overview

Concrete tool for renaming a column in a dataset provided by the HuggingFace Datasets library.

Description

The rename_column method creates a copy of the dataset with one column renamed. It updates both the Arrow table column names and the Features metadata. The operation validates that the original column exists and that the new name does not conflict with existing column names. If the dataset has format columns configured, they are also updated to reflect the rename.

Usage

Use Dataset.rename_column when you need to change the name of a single column to match the naming convention expected by a model, Trainer, or downstream pipeline step.

Code Reference

Source Location

• Repository: datasets
• File: src/datasets/arrow_dataset.py
• Lines: L2263-L2327

Signature

@fingerprint_transform(inplace=False)
def rename_column(
    self,
    original_column_name: str,
    new_column_name: str,
    new_fingerprint: Optional[str] = None,
) -> "Dataset":

Import

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("cornell-movie-review-data/rotten_tomatoes", split="validation")
ds = ds.rename_column("label", "label_new")

I/O Contract

Inputs

Name	Type	Required	Description
original_column_name	str	Yes	Name of the column to rename. Must exist in the dataset.
new_column_name	str	Yes	New name for the column. Must not already exist in the dataset and must not be empty.
new_fingerprint	Optional[str]	No	The new fingerprint of the dataset after transform. If None, computed automatically.

Outputs

Name	Type	Description
return	Dataset	A copy of the dataset with the specified column renamed.

Usage Examples

Basic Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("cornell-movie-review-data/rotten_tomatoes", split="validation")
ds = ds.rename_column("label", "label_new")
print(ds.column_names)
# ['text', 'label_new']

Related Pages

Implements Principle

• Principle:Huggingface_Datasets_Column_Renaming