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Implement time-based cache invalidation for dataset description cache

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#1,714 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
45/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
python

Research direction

Start at _get_dataset_description and inspect the TODO and existing handling of description.xml and force_refresh_cache=True. Determine the intended cache age and verify that old cached descriptions refresh while recent ones remain usable; done means dataset metadata is no longer reused indefinitely.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

### Problem
The function _get_dataset_description caches the dataset description (description.xml) to disk, but the cache is never invalidated.

Dataset descriptions contain metadata such as dataset status (active, deactivated, etc.), which may change over time on the OpenML server. Because the cached description file is reused indefinitely, users may receive stale metadata if the local cache is old.

There is also a TODO comment in the code suggesting that this cache should invalidate itself after some time.

Expected Behavior

Cached dataset descriptions should be refreshed periodically to ensure that metadata reflects the current state on the server.

Current Behavior

Once description.xml is downloaded and cached, it is reused indefinitely unless the cache directory is manually deleted or force_refresh_cache=True is used.

Dominant language
Python
Stars
361
Forks
296
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

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