Command Line Quickstart
Learn to use the dx client for command-line access to the full range of DNAnexus Platform features.
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Learn to use the dx client for command-line access to the full range of DNAnexus Platform features.
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The dx command-line client is included in the . You can use the dx client to log into the Platform; to upload, browse, and organize data; and to launch analyses.
All the projects and data referenced in this Quickstart are publicly available, so you can follow along step-by-step.
As you work, you can use this as a reference.
At the command line, you can also enter dx helpto see a list of commands, broken down by category. To see a list of commands from a particular category, enter dx help <category>.
To learn what a particular command does, enter dx help <command>, dx <command> -h, or dx <command> -help For example, enter dx help lsto learn about the command dx ls:
To use the command-line interface (CLI), make sure you've installed the DNAnexus Software Development Kit (SDK) available
Let's look inside some of the public projects that have already been set up. From the command line, enter the command:
You can avoid typing out the full name of the folder by typing in dx ls C and then pressing <TAB>. The folder name will auto-complete from there.
You don't have to be in a project to inspect its contents. You can also look into another project, and a folder within the project, by giving the project name or ID, followed by a colon (:) and the folder path. Here, we list the contents of the publicly available project "Demo Data" using both its name and ID.
As shown above, you can use the -l flag in conjunction with dx ls to list more details about files, such as the time a file was last modified, its size (if applicable), and its full DNAnexus ID.
Besides describing data and projects (examples for which are shown below), you can also describe apps, jobs, and users.
Describing a File
Below, we describe the reference genome file for C. elegans located in the "Reference Genome Files: AWS US (East)" project that we've been using (which should be accessible from other regions as well). Note that you need to add a colon (:) after the project name, here that would be Reference Genome Files\: AWS US (East): .
Describing a Project
Below, we describe the publicly available Reference Genome Files project that we've been using.
You're now ready to start uploading your data and running your own analyses.
Let's run it on the file we just uploaded and use the -n flag to ask for the first 12 lines (the first 3 reads) of the FASTQ file.
Files have different available fields for metadata, such as "properties" (key-value pairs) and "tags".
If you have not yet done so, you can upload a FASTQ file for analysis.
If you don't know the command-line name of the app you would like to run, you have two options:
Alternatively, you can search for apps from the command line by running the command dx find apps. You will find the name of the app that you can use on the command line in the parentheses (underlined below).
There are also additional options that you can use to restrict your search of previous jobs, such as by their names or when they were run.
You should now see two new files in your project: the mapped reads in a BAM file, and an index of that BAM file with a .bai extension. You can refer to the output file by name or by the job that produced it using the syntax job-xxxx:<output field>. Try it yourself with the job ID you got from calling the BWA-MEM app!
This time, we won't rely on the interactive mode to enter our inputs. Instead, we will provide them directly. But first, let's look up the app's spec so we know what the inputs are called. For this, let's run the command dx run freebayes -h.
Optional inputs are shown using square brackets ([]) around the command-line syntax for each input. You'll notice that there are two required inputs that must be specified:
Sorted mappings (sorted_bams): A list of files with a .bam extension.
Genome (genome_fastagz): A reference genome in FASTA format that has been gzipped.
Running the App with a One-Liner Using a Job-Based Object Reference
It is sometimes more convenient to run apps using a single one-line command. You can do this by specifying all the necessary inputs either via the command line or in a prepared file. We will use the -i flag to specify inputs as suggested by the output of dx run freebayes ‑h:
genome_fastagz: The ce10 genome in the Reference Genomes project.
To specify new job input using the output of a previous job, we'll use a [job-based object reference](/Developer-Tutorials/Sample-Code?bash#Use-job-based-object-references-(JBORs)) via the job-xxxx:<output field> syntax we used earlier.
Replace the job ID below with that generated by the BWA app you ran earlier. The -y flag skips the input confirmation.
Automatically Running a Command After a Job Finishes
Congratulations! You have now called variants on a reads sample, and you did it all on the command line. Now let's look at how you can automate this process.
The beauty of the CLI is the ability to automate processes. In fact, we can automate everything we just did. The following script assumes that you've already logged in and is hardcoded to use the ce10 genome and takes in a local gzipped FASTQ file as its command-line argument.
To update your version of the command-line tool, you can run the command .
The first thing you'll need to do is to . If you haven't created a DNAnexus account yet, visit the and sign up. User signup is not supported on the command line.
Your and your current project settings have now been saved in a local configuration file, and you're ready to start accessing your project.
You can generate an authentication token from the online DNAnexus Platform .
By running the command and picking a project, you've now done the command-line equivalent of going to the project page for (platform login required to access this link) on the website. This is a DNAnexus-sponsored project containing popular genomes for you to use when running analyses with your own data.
For more information about the dx select command, please see the page.
Now you can list all of the data in the top-level directory of the project you've just selected by running the command . You can also see the contents of a folder by running the command dx ls <folder_name>.
You can use the command to learn more about on the platform. Given a DNAnexus object ID or name, dx describe will return detailed information about the object in question. dx describe will only return results for data objects to which you have access.
Now, we'll use the command to create a new project.
The text project-xxxx denotes a placeholder for a unique, immutable project ID. For more information about object IDs, see the page.
The new command can also allow you to create other new data objects, including new orgs or users. Use the command dx help new to see additional information. The full list of dx commands is provided .
If you have a sample you would like to analyze, you can use the command or the if you have installed it. For the purposes of this tutorial, you can also download the file , which represents the first 25000 C. elegans reads from SRR070372. We will use this file again later to run through a sample analysis.
For uploading multiple or large files, we strongly recommend that you use the ; it will compress your files and upload them in parallel over multiple HTTP connections and boasts other features such as resumable uploads.
The following command uploads the small-celegans-sample.fastq file into the current directory of the current project. The --wait flag tells to wait until it has finished uploading the data before returning the prompt and describing the result.
To take a quick look at the first few lines of the file you just uploaded, use the command. By default, it prints the first 10 lines of the given file.
If you'd like to download a file from the platform, just use the command. This command will use the name of the file for the filename unless you specify your own with the -o/--output flag. In the example below, we download the same C. elegans file that we uploaded previously.
For the next few steps, if you would like to follow along, you will need a C. elegans FASTQ file. We will map the reads against the ce10 genome. If you haven't already, you can download and use the following FASTQ file, which contains the first 25,000 reads from SRR070372: .
You can also substitute your own reads file for a different species (though it may take longer to run through the example). For your convenience, DNAnexus has already imported a variety of reference genomes to the platform. If you have your own FASTA file that you would like to use, you can upload the file and create genome indices for BWA using the (platform login required to access these links).
The following walkthrough is helpful if you would like to understand what all the commands do and take a look at what apps you're running, but if you're just interested in converting a gzipped FASTQ file to a VCF file via BWA and the FreeBayes variant caller, then you can skip ahead to the section below, where you can see all the commands necessary for running apps.
For more information about using the command , please see the page.
Next, use the (platform login required to access this link) to map the uploaded reads file to a reference genome.
You can navigate to its web page from the (platform login required to access this link) on the platform. The app's page will tell you how to run it from the command line. You can find more information about the app we're running on the (platform login required to access this link).
Now install the app using and check that it has been installed. While you do not always need to install an app to run it, you may find it useful as a bookmarking tool.
We can now run the app using . We will run it without any arguments; it will then prompt us for required and then optional arguments. Note that the reference file genomeindex_targz for the C. elegans sample we are using is in a .tar.gz format and can be found in the Reference Genome folder of the region your project is in.
You can use the command to monitor jobs. The command will print out the log file of the job, including the STDOUT, STDERR, and INFO printouts.
You can also use the command dx describe job-xxxx to learn more about your job. If you don't know the job's ID, you can use the command to list all the jobs run in the current project, along with the user who ran them, their status, and when they began.
If for some reason you need to terminate your job before it completes, use the command .
You can use the (platform login required to access this link) to call variants on your BAM file.
sorted_bams: The output of the previous BWA step (see the section for more information).
You can use the command to wait for a job to finish. If we run the following command right after running the Freebayes app, it will show you the recent jobs only after the job has finished, as shown in the example below.
You're now ready to start scripting using dx. As shown in some of the examples above, the --brief flag can come in handy for scripting. A list of all dx commands and flags is on the page.
For more detailed information about running apps and applets from the command line, see the page.
For a comprehensive guide to the DNAnexus SDK, see the .
Want to start writing your own apps? Check out the for some useful tutorials.