Compose: Deprecate and remove `docker-compose create`

[dnephin]

I think it was a mistake to add this command. It's lead to a lot of confusion, and duplication with up. Instead of create we should have added a --no-start or --create-only flag to up.

Let's do that now and deprecate `create.

See #3394 and #2908

[ashb]

I'm not quite sure how a flag or a sub-command makes a difference or not. Given docker has docker create command, I would vote for keeping it conceptually the same: Create resources, but don't start any containers.

(Also I was somewhat surprised to see that docker-copose up wasn't implemented in terms of create && start. But I haven't looked in detail at the code so I'm willing to accept there are reasons why that wouldn't work.)

[rafaelsierra]

+1 for keeping it, create is much more meaningful than up --no-start/--create-only, up is supposed to get the container running

[nschoe]

In my opinion, it is not only a matter of naming. Currently, there is two different behaviors:

• docker-compose up creates the containers, but also the volumes and the custom network in which all services defined in the docker-compose.yml are part of.
• docker-compose create creates the containers, the volumes but not the network.

And for me, here lies the difference. In my opinion, either docker-compose create should create the custom network, exactly like docker-compose up, this way it is exactly the same behavior, it creates everything, _but it just doesn't start the containers_.
Or, for some reasons (which I currently can't think of, but maybe there are), the behavior of docker-compose create is fine as it is, in which case, I think it makes sense to add a --no-run | --n-start to docker-compose up.

Because sometimes (albeit I'll admit, I took me some time with docker before I met the need -but I finally did) I need to have everything created, prepared, but I don't want the containers to run before my client validates his token (for instance).

What do you think?

[ilgarm]

IMHO, 'create' behaviour is not intuitive. I would expect it to create all resources, including networks. Exactly like @nschoe mentioned above, to create everything, but not to start.

Are there any plans to add/fix this functionality to 'create'? Thx!

[aanand]

@ilgarm What we're discussing in this issue is an alternative proposal. See #3394 and #2908 for context.

[aPoCoMiLogin]

Is there any plan to clean this up?

[timothysnave]

+1 for changing create to create all resources. Is there even another way using docker-compose to create networks? I can't seem to find it if there is.

[aaronjensen]

@timothysnave I use this as a workaround:

version: '2'
services:
  create_network:
    image: busybox
    command: "true"

docker-compose up create_network > /dev/null

[timothysnave]

I didn't know you can use up with a service. That's exactly what I need, actually. Thanks!

[itnow]

Intuitive for me: at first prepare all stuff with build, create and then just start when needed. But right now it fail on start - no network autocreated.