Command-line interface (CLI) for headless batch mode¶
Command-line arguments offer a variety of options that generally override the corresponding parameters in the preferences.
Windows¶
An easy way to start MZmine with arguments is to create a shortcut to the MZmine.exe, right-click, and define the target with additional arguments. This example runs MZMine in batch mode (headless), imports the specified batch file, overrides the memory management to none (which is the default), effectively using memory mapping to store and access spectral, centroid, and feature data from temporary files stored in the defined temp directory. By leaving out the memory or temp arguments, the values stored in the current preferences file will be used, or the default values if no preferences file was found.
Process all .mzML files in a folder by the provided batch file
"C:\Program Files\MZmine\MZmine.exe" -batch "D:\batch\my_batch_file.xml" -input "D:\Data\*.mzML"
Defining the temp folder, otherwise uses the one specified in local configuration
"C:\Program Files\MZmine\MZmine.exe" -batch "D:\batch\my_batch_file.xml" -temp "D:\tmpmzmine"
Start MZmine batch with memory mapping (DEFAULT)
"C:\Program Files\MZmine\MZmine.exe" -batch "D:\batch\my_batch_file.xml" -memory none -temp "D:\tmpmzmine"
Start MZmine batch on machines with enough memory (RAM) with -memory all this will disable memory mapping to temporary files.
"C:\Program Files\MZmine\MZmine.exe" -batch "D:\batch\my_batch_file.xml" -memory all -temp "D:\tmpmzmine"
macOS¶
If the app was installed to the Applications folder, run this command in the terminal to run a batch file:
/Applications/MZmine.app/Contents/MacOS/MZmine -batch /path/to/batch_file.xml
/Applications/MZmine.app/Contents/MacOS/MZmine -batch /path/to/batch_file.xml -input "/path/to/data/*.mzML"
Argument table¶
| Argument | Options (default) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| -b and -batch | a path, e.g. "D:\batch.xml" | Path to batch file |
| -i and -input | a txt file or glob pattern, e.g., "D:\Data\*.mzML" | input data files. Either defined in a .txt text file with one file per line or by glob pattern matching. To match all .mzML files in a path: -i "D:\Data\*.mzML" |
| -l and -libraries | a txt file or glob pattern, e.g., "D:\Data\*.json" | spectral library files. Either defined in a .txt text file with one file per line or by glob pattern matching. To match all .json or .mgf files in a path: -libraries "D:\Data\*.json" |
| -m and -memory | none, all, features, centroids, raw, masses_features | Defines what data is kept in memory (RAM) or otherwise memory mapped to the temp directory. Generally this setting should be none. If memory is no issue this option might be set to all process all spectral and feature data in memory. The option masses_features keeps centroid mass lists and features in memory while memory mapping raw spectral data. |
| -t and -temp | a path, e.g., "-temp "D:\tmpmzmine\" | The defined directory should be on a fast drive (usually SSD > HDD > network drive) with enough free space. Local drives are usually preferred. MZmine uses memory mapping to efficiently store and access spectral and feature data. This can lead to a considerable temporary consumption of disk space. Make sure that the selected drive has enough space (maybe 20 GB + 1 GB/10 files; generously over estimated). |
| -p and -pref | a path, e.g., "D:\config.xml" | An MZmine configuration file in xml format. The general preferences. |
| -threads | int number of threads or 'auto' | replace the preference parameter with either 'auto' to detect the number of available cores - or an int number of threads for processing. |