APIDownloadsIndex of dx CommandsLegal

dx upload

You can upload files to the DNAnexus Platform using the command dx upload. You can also upload data using the DNAnexus Upload Agent, a fast and convenient command-line client. For uploading multiple or large files (>50 MB), we recommend that you use Upload Agent, which allows you to upload up to 1000 files concurrently and resume uploads in case of network interruption.

Uploading Files

Uploading One File

You can use the dx upload command followed by a file path to upload one local file.

$ dx upload /Users/alice/README.txt
[===========================================================>] Uploaded 597 of 597 bytes (100%) /Users/alice/README.txt
ID                  file-xxxx
Class               file
Project             project-xxxx
Folder              /
Name                README.txt
State               closing
Visibility          visible
Types               -
Properties          -
Tags                -
Outgoing links      -
Created             Sun Jan  1 12:00:01 2017
Created by          alice
Last modified       Sun Jan  1 12:00:02 2017
archivalState       "live"
Media type

You can use the —brief flag with the dx upload command to print only a DNAnexus ID rather than the output shown above. This flag is useful if you want to save the file ID of the uploaded file.

If you are trying to upload a file hosted at a publicly accessible URL rather than locally, you can use the URL Fetcher (platform login required to access this link) app.

Uploading Multiple Files

You can also use the dx upload command followed by multiple file paths to upload multiple local files.

You can use the wildcard * to upload multiple files.

The following command uploads all the files inside the /Users/alice/ directory. This directory should contain only files and not sub-directories.

Uploading Directories

You can specify the ‑r/‑‑recursive parameter with the dx upload command to recursively upload one or more directories or folders and maintain their respective structures.

You can use the dx ls command to list the uploaded folders and files.

If the local uploaded directory ends with the / character, only the contents of the directory are uploaded, not the directory itself.

Uploading Files With Metadata

You can specify object metadata using the dx upload command.

If multiple files are uploaded, tags and properties are applied to all the files.

Properties

You can use the --property KEY=VALUE parameter to add metadata to the file being uploaded. The parameter may be repeated as necessary, for example, --property key1=val1 --property key2=val2, to link multiple metadata fields as key-value pairs.

Tags

You can also add tags to uploaded files with the dx upload command using the --tag TAG parameter. The parameter may be repeated as necessary, for example, --tag tag1 --tag tag2, to link multiple tags to a file.

Advanced Options

Redirecting Uploaded Files

You can use the --path/‑‑destination parameter to specify the DNAnexus destination path. If the path is not specified, dx upload defaults to the current project and folder. You can determine your current project and folder using the command dx pwd.

Uploading from stdin

You can upload data directly from standard input. This is useful when streaming the upload while the file is generated.

Buffers

You can specify the --buffer-size parameter with the dx upload command to set the write buffer size in bytes. For large files from standard input, set a --buffer-size manually because the dx command cannot determine the file size in advance.

Hiding the Progress Bar

You can specify the --no-progress flag with the dx upload command to hide the progress bar.

Last updated

Was this helpful?