Javascript API Clarity - filesDownload()

[abcd12341]

I've been learning the Javascript API and am having a bumpy journey with filesDownload().

Looking at the docs...

http://dropbox.github.io/dropbox-sdk-js/Dropbox.html#filesDownload__anchor

...the function is meant to be the way to download a file. However, the only arg it takes is one in which { path, rev } are specified. And the non-error response is a...

http://dropbox.github.io/dropbox-sdk-js/global.html#FilesFileMetadata

...which contains no fields that encapsulate the actual data being returned.

Upon inspection with a quick console.log() there is a 'fileBlob' field being returned but my concern is that directly accessing this field is an unsupported operation since it isn't listed in the FilesFileMetadata docs. Thus I'm concluding that either the docs are missing that field or that I haven't yet groked the intended workflow for downloading files (implying that the docs could be more helpful here).

[Greg-DB]

Using 'fileBlob' in browser JavaScript (or 'fileBinary' in Node) is the correct way to access the file data itself. Apologies that this isn't better documented! I'll ask the team to clarify that in the docs.

There's an example of using that with a Content-Download style method like this here:

https://github.com/dropbox/dropbox-sdk-js/blob/master/examples/javascript/download/index.html#L53

[Dzivo]

@greg still not documented 6 years later what is the type of fileBinary is it a Blob ?

[Greg-DB]

@Dzivo The fileBinary returned by the Dropbox JavaScript SDK in Node is a Buffer. (The fileBlob returned by the Dropbox JavaScript SDK in browser JavaScript is a Blob.)