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diegostefano's avatar
diegostefano
Explorer | Level 4
10 months ago

Integrating Dropbox API into file sharing application

Hi, people!   I'm currently working on a chat app that relies on the sharing of heavy files. So I decided to try to use the Dropbox API to deal with the file management.   The scenario is: every ...
  • Здравко's avatar
    10 months ago

    Hi diegostefano,

    In the described situation you have 2 possible scenarios. Usage of temporary upload link or make you server behave like a proxy.

    You can use /2/files/get_temporary_upload_link to generate upload link (server side) on demand and use the same link client side to make the actual upload. This way is lighter since nothing more than the link generation is performed server side and most of the traffic is between client side and Dropbox server. Drawback is the nature of the link - once it stops cannot be used to continue broken connection for instance. Such a way is usable for stable client side connection if you can rely on.

    Other way is upload the file to your server at once or in pieces (without saving them locally) where the data are forwarded directly to Dropbox using upload session. There are different possible configuration of such session. Select what best matches your use case. In such a situation you have better control on the upload process and can control it at any one moment and step, but your server load becomes higher.

    In both cases no any authentication information unrelated to particular user is exposed to client side. All authentications of the account are performed server side. Choose what better suits your needs.

    Hope this helps.

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