1. Concepts Guide
  2. Object Storage Overview
  3. Object Naming Prefixes and Hierarchies

Object Naming Prefixes and Hierarchies

Within an Object Storage namespace, buckets and objects exist in a flat structure. However, you can simulate a directory structure by adding a prefix string that includes one or more forward slashes (/) to an object name. Doing so lets you list one directory at a time, which is helpful when navigating a large set of objects.

For example:

marathon/finish_line.jpg
marathon/participants/p_21.jpg

If you add prefixes to object names, you can:

  • Use the OCI CLI or Compute API to perform bulk downloads and bulk deletes of all objects at a specified level of the hierarchy.

  • Use the Compute Web UI to display a hierarchical view of your objects in virtual folders. In the previous example, marathon would be displayed as a folder containing an object named finish_line.jpg and participants would be a subfolder of marathon, containing an object named p_21.jpg. You can bulk upload objects to any level of the hierarchy and perform bulk deletes of all the objects in a bucket or folder.

Bulk operations at a specified level of the hierarchy do not affect objects in any level above.

When naming objects, you can also use prefix strings without a delimiter. No delimiters would allow search operations in the Compute Web UI and certain bulk operations in the OCI CLI or Compute API to match on the prefix portion of the object name. For example, in the object names below, the string gloves_27_ can serve as a prefix for matching purposes when performing bulk operations: 

gloves_27_dark_green.jpg
gloves_27_light_blue.jpg

When you perform bulk uploads with any of the UIs, you can add a prefix string to the names of the files you are uploading.