What exactly is namespace

[michal_k]

Hello,

I read this documentation and I did not understand, what exactly is meant by "namespace" which is being locked. The documentation sais this:

"You can think of a namespace as a collection of files and folders in the internal representation of the Dropbox file system. Each user’s private Dropbox folder maps to a root namespace."

Does it mean that every private (aka not shared) folder has it own namespace and this namespaces are in hierarchy?

Example:

In Dropbox root I have following structure of private folders:

root
|-- Folder_1
| |-- Folder_1a
| +-- Folder_1b
|     |-- Folder_1b1
|     +-- Folder_1b2
+-- Folder_2
 |-- Folder_2a
 |-- Folder_2b
 +-- Folder_2c

I want to upload file to Folder_1b. What is the exact namespace, that will be locked? Which folders belong to the locked namespace and to which folder can I upload files via API in parralel so the namespace lock contention will not occur?

[Steve M. · Accepted solution]

'Does it mean that every private (aka not shared) folder has it own namespace and this namespaces are in hierarchy?"

No, a folder doesn't represent a new namespace unless it's a shared folder or team folder.

In your example, assuming none of those folders are shared, everything is part of the same namespace.

[Moravia t.]

And what if Folder_1 is shared folder?

[Greg-DB]

If Folder_1 is a shared folder, then Folder_1 is a namespace, separate from the root namespace.