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Tom A.5's avatar
Tom A.5
New member | Level 2
8 years ago
Solved

batchUpload - I want to upload one file to 3 or 4 dropbox paths.

We need to hopefully efficently upload about a single local file into about 3 - 4 locations on a users dropbox.    I am using the objective-c api, but this question is not api version specific.   ...
API
chirstius's avatar
chirstius
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
8 years ago

Hello Tom A.5,

 

There may be a few options for this. Some things for you to try:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-copy_batch

Will allow the upload once, copy-many process to possibly be consolidated to fewer calls.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-copy_reference-get

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-copy_reference-save

Might be interesting to look at especially if you need to replicate the content between more than one user/account. You could upload once, and then replicate across accounts without having to upload again, all replication happens on the Dropbox side so it's pretty efficient.

 

Another option is the upload session mechanism:
https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-upload_session-start

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-upload_session-append_v2

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-upload_session-finish_batch

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-upload_session-finish_batch-check

 

But if I am reading your post correctly - this isn't about one file stored in many places, it's about many files stored in many places (though the same "set" of files repllicated in all areas) - is that correct?

 

If so, then even with upload sessions, you'd need to upload every file to every location before doing the finish batch calls. So if you are talking data efficiency (I assume this is a mobile device?) then upload once, and copy (via whatever method you think works best) might be the best option, despite requiring multiple API calls.

 

Let me know if I am interpreting your question correctly and if any of these options might fit.

 

Thanks,

 

-Chuck

  • Tom A.5's avatar
    Tom A.5
    New member | Level 2
    8 years ago

    Thanks for the quick reply!

     

    You have it right - what we are doing is uploading about 3 - 20 files into one user's account, with each file going to 4 places. So I am using batch upload already to get the files up, then I am going to make a list of instructions to use the files-copy_batch call to make the 3 copy calls (since the file is up there on the user account). There may be a small window of time (<1sec it seems) where the user could erase the originally uploaded file. Don't think that's going to happen much. Its on MacOS. It's making thousands of files (archival PDF files) in the user's dropbox account. 

     

    I wish that the DBFILESCommitInfo object had a way to pass in an array of paths to copy to, instead of one file... 

     

    --Tom

    • Greg-DB's avatar
      Greg-DB
      Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
      8 years ago
      Thanks! I'll pass this along as a feature request for that DBFILESCommitInfo in the Objective-C SDK.
      • Tom A.5's avatar
        Tom A.5
        New member | Level 2
        8 years ago

        https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/API-Support-Feedback/copy-batch/td-p/211624

         

        So I am running into the same bug as the one above. 

         

        I call   dCopyBatch

         

        Then I call to get the status of the copy with dCopyBatchCheck and I get:

         

        I have the source from_path repeated and then 

         

        Printing description of self->_uploadCopyBatchInfos:

         

         

        <

        __NSArrayM 0x6040006b3e50>(

{

    "from_path" = "/FOLDER_1/Chicopee.jpg";

    "to_path" = "/FOLDER_2/Chicopee.jpg";

},

{

    "from_path" = "/FOLDER_1/Chicopee.jpg";

    "to_path" = "/FOLDER_3/Chicopee.jpg";

},

}

        And I get back "duplicated_or_nested_paths" 

         

        The source IS duplicated, but that should be OK as I am copying files.

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