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Forum Discussion
Search_v2 API Changes
Hi folks,
I just wanted to give some feedback regarding the new search_v2 API, which came as a bit of surprise to me.
Firstly it seems that the creation of this new API was not announced, at least not anywhere that I can find. I'm a registered Dropbox developer, but I don't seem to have received any notification. I did not receive any e-mail as a registered developer, it is not in the blog, and there's no mention in a quick search of these forums (not that I was a member before now). The application I developer provides Dropbox as a side-feature and I do not actively use it myself so I have not been notified as a developer of the app because I have not called the old API recently.
Secondly I question why these changes have not been implemented as a v3 API, rather than creating a breaking change to the existing API. Versioned APIs should be stable within the version.
Thirdly I question the naming of the new API - `files/search_v2` and `files/search/continue_v2` - a break from the existing naming scheme of simply appending `/continue` to receive additional pages of results. This means that the API is no longer consistent within itself (it previously was). You have to know which endpoint is a v2 endpoint, and to treat it differently.
Finally, in October it was announced that the old `/files/search` API was going to be removed and we were given less than 6 months to replace it with the new API. That's great... if you have a release cadence which fits into that timeframe, but not all projects do - let alone the latest version being installed in time.
I would urge you to reconsider removal of the 'old' v1 search API, especially in such a short timeframe, but really at all. Don't break APIs!
Good news, the team has finished reviewing this and has decided to extend this, bringing the retirement date for /files/search to October 28. Hope this helps!
- Greg-DB
Dropbox Staff
Thanks for sharing this detailed feedback! We appreciate you taking the time to write this up. I'll send this along to the team.
Greg.
Thank you for your reply.
Are you able to provide any further information on other planned changes to the API? I notice that there are other v2 endpoint options in the documentation, but these are also inconsistent - most use the same continue endpoint as the v1 API for example. I also fail to notice any information about whether more changes are planned, whether any further removals are planned, or any roadmap for the API as a whole.
Is there any timeframe for when the relevant team may respond to these concerns?
I will also note that this is not the first API change made to the v2 API which has broken applications.
Not every application which uses Dropbox is a SaaS solution fully under control of the original developer. Self-hosted services using Dropbox are put in a very difficult position with these changes. We cannot simply roll out a fix overnight. Some of our users take months to plan upgrades and can only do so at certain times of year.
Andrew
- Greg-DB
Thanks for following up. I don't have any other news or planned changes to share. Dropbox will announce any other changes if/when they are planned. We don't have a public roadmap for the API, but I'll pass this along as a feature request as well. I can't promise if or when that might be implemented though.
Also, I checked on this change with the team on this, and we did send an email regarding the search endpoint migration, but it sounds like that unfortunately did not make it to you, perhaps either because it got filtered or because you weren't using the endpoint, like you mentioned. In any case, I recommend making sure the email address on the account that owns your API app(s) is valid and can receive emails from Dropbox. And, make sure you haven't disabled the "API announcements" category on https://www.dropbox.com/account/notifications .
In addition to email notifications, you can find news about the API on the blog here: https://dropbox.tech/developers . There's also an RSS feed for that here: https://dropbox.tech/developers/feed . For instance, here's a blog post about the new search functionality.
Anyway, Dropbox is now offering new search functionality, so the team chose to introduce a new version of the search endpoint on API v2 (/2/files/search_v2) to replace the older one on API v2 (/2/files/search). Dropbox generally versions specific endpoints like this when introducing changes to specific functionality, instead of versioning the entire API (e.g., from Dropbox API v2 to a hypothetical Dropbox API v3). I understand this is not your preferred pattern for changes like this so I've raised this with the team, but right now there aren't any plans to change the versioning scheme used on the Dropbox API. I've likewise sent your feedback along regarding the "continue" endpoint format.
Finally, I've also shared this request to reconsider the retirement of /2/files/search, but right now it is still planned to be retired on February 28th, 2021. We'll follow up if that changes. If you are unable to migrate your app to use the new version by then, feel free to open an API ticket to see if we can offer some solution.
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