Specifying datatype when adding a column to a dataset.

[varadhbhatnagar]

Feature request

There should be a way to specify the datatype of a column in datasets.add_column().

Motivation

To specify a custom datatype, we have to use datasets.add_column() followed by datasets.cast_column() which is slow for large datasets. Another workaround is to pass a numpy.array() of desired type to the datasets.add_column() function.

IMO this functionality should be natively supported.

https://discuss.huggingface.co/t/add-column-with-a-particular-type-in-datasets/95674

Your contribution

I can submit a PR for this.

[varadhbhatnagar]

self-assign