Python SDK: Can one identify email address for a specific file upload?

[lymanhurd]

I have an app which is restricted to a single folder which polls for received uploads, downloads the file, processes it and then uploads the result.  At this point I need to inform the original uploader and share the new file with them.  Is there a way to do this short of creating a custom folder per uploader?

[Здравко]

---

@lymanhurd wrote:

...  At this point I need to inform the original uploader and share the new file with them.  Is there a way to do this short of creating a custom folder per uploader?

---

Hi @lymanhurd,

You can upload/create a file/folder, wherever/whenever you want to, in the users account. Since every account is assigned to particular user (probably the one that upload processed content), creating something in the particular account is that what you're "sharing" it with that user (if shared content, maybe more users). If you mean something else, clarify it.

About to your intent to inform the user, it's done by default by Dropbox. You can forbid it, if/when desirable, explicitly using "mute" flag during upload/finishing.

Hope this helps.

[lymanhurd]

I apologize for a lack of clarity.  Let me elaborate further, and thank you for responding.

I am not assuming that my "customers" have a Dropbox account.  I am asking them to upload a file to my Dropbox account and then I have an automated process hosted in the AWS cloud which uses the Python SDK to download the file to be processed and subsequently upload the processed file to Dropbox, again to my Dropbox,  and then notifying the original poster that their processed file is available for them to download.

I know that I could engineer the workflow so that I create a folder per customer and then it would be clear who to reply to.  I was wondering if there was a more efficient way to accomplish this, which could be done if I could retrieve which files were uploaded as a result of which file requests (clearly having each file request have its own folder is one way to distinguish).  Thanks.

I strongly suspect, from viewing analogous questions that the answer is "no", but I did not find an answer that I thought definitively answered exactly this question and also some of the relevant posts were three years old!

[Здравко]

😁Hi again @lymanhurd, Is that some sort of rhetoric? 🤔

---

@lymanhurd wrote:

...

I strongly suspect, from viewing analogous questions that the answer is "no", but I did not find an answer that I thought definitively answered exactly this question and also some of the relevant posts were three years old!

---

Why to be NO? I have no idea where you read it, but it's different context, most probably. In a bit above in your previous post:

---

@lymanhurd wrote:

...  I was wondering if there was a more efficient way to accomplish this, which could be done if I could retrieve which files were uploaded as a result of which file requests (clearly having each file request have its own folder is one way to distinguish).  ...

---

Is this some sort of joke? 😜 If you didn't yet, take a look on /2/file_requests/create, more precisely the "destination" parameter. 😉 What's it for? What if you assign different folder for every active request? ...and all different users, you're working with, got their own request link(s) that point to corresponding assigned folder(s) - least one folder per user.

Hope this clarifies matter.

PS: I forgot you're asking about Python SDK. Equivalent point in documentation there can be seen here. The same param is on focus.

[lymanhurd]

I apologize for the language difficulties.  Let me break it down further.  And, yes everything I am doing is using the Python SDK.

1) I request a file from bob@example.com which in the simplest case ends up in a folder with requests from jane@example.com etc.

2) A batch program looks at files in the directory.  I see that I can query for a list of requests and for each request get a count of files uploaded.  What I want to know is, for example, assuming the count is 1 in both cases and the folder now contains file1.txt and file2.txt, how do I determine by means of he Python SDK which file was sent in response to which request.

I have read the entirety of the requests documented in https://dropbox-sdk-python.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api/file_requests.html but do not see that it contains a solution.

[Greg-DB · Accepted solution]

@lymanhurd Thanks for following up and clarifying. Dropbox does not offer an API for retrieving the specific details for file request submissions like that, but I'll pass this along as a feature request. I can't promise if or when that might be implemented though. That being the case, you'd need to create unique file requests/folders as you mentioned.

[lymanhurd]

Thank you! 

I am not sure what is wrong with my browser but every time I hit "Accept as Solution"  I get a "Request too Large" error from the server.  That being said I certainly accept the solution :-).

By way of background I am cobbling together a prototype mainly using AWS but roped in Dropbox since the API was friendlier for what I needed than implementing the equivalent functionality straight against S3!