Error: "request body: id... did not match pattern"

[toki4004]

I am trying to get contents of a text file via 

https://api.dropboxapi.com/2/file_requests/get

and I get this error: 

"Error in call to API function "file_requests/get": request body: id: 'id:Jc0ALBXAshIAAAAAAAB3tw' did not match pattern '[-_0-9a-zA-Z]+'"

Here is my relevant code:

    $fields = array(
        "id" => "id:Jc0ALBXAshIAAAAAAAB3tw" );

    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, json_encode( $fields ) );
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true );
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "POST" );
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array( 'Authorization: Bearer ' . $auth_token, 'Content-Type: application/json' ) );
    curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://api.dropboxapi.com/2/file_requests/get' );

I got the file id from another api request, so it should exist. What am I doing wrong?

[Здравко · Accepted solution]

Hi @toki4004,

To get content of any file, you need to download it, not something else. 🙂

Something more: as seems you're messing 2 different things - file and file request! File request is pseudo object representing your (or your app' user) intention to get file from somebody else, not the file itself. Getting such object means to get the pseudo object description, not any file that may be received while using this request - multiple files could be received with single request. File request has its own id with its own format that differs from file id format, of course. That where your error is coming from. 😉

Hope this clarifies matter.

[Greg-DB]

@toki4004 Здравко is correct; the /2/file_requests/get endpoint is for getting information about a "file request" not an actual file. You should use the /2/files/download endpoint instead to download the contents of a file.