how to make sure Dropbox link whether it can download

[alicera]

here is the code

```

if wget -q --method=HEAD ftp://ftp.somewhere.com/bigfile.gz;
then
echo "This page exists."
else
echo "This page does not exist."
fi

```

I try to use correct link and incorrect link  (dropbox)

It is still return "This page exists."

Desktop

[Jay]

Hi @alicera, thanks for messaging the Community.

Could you clarify what you're trying to do?

There isn't a direct method to test if a shared link to a file exists or not, since it would still generate a message on the Dropbox site, saying there isn't a file there.

This will help me to assist further!

[alicera]

Assume these link are setting to share

correct drop box link:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/abcdefg/123?dl=0

incorrect drop box link:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/abcdefghiklnd/123?dl=0

where the incorrect drop box link is the two status to generate

1. mistake by myself.  I got the link wrong when typing.

2. I remove the file but link is hard code somewhere

So I wnat to write a code to check whether the link work or not

Do you know what I mean?

[Jay]

As far as I'm aware, it isn't possible to determine if a file exists at a specific link. Entering the incorrect link means it wouldn't be possible to locate the file.

If the file was deleted, the shared link would also be deleted, and can't be restored to the same link.

[Rich]

---

@alicera wrote:

So I wnat to write a code to check whether the link work or not

---

The problem you're likely running into is that even when the file doesn't exist, the page still does, and that is what wget is checking for. You're not actually checking for the existence of a file; you're checking a specific page (the URL of the shared link), and that page will load even when the file doesn't exist, so wget reports that the page exists.

[alicera]

I mean I upload a file and share it .

I will get a share link and I can download it with wget .

And I hard code the link to my program.

Someday, I delete the file on dropbox and forget to change the program share link code

So I want to add some code to check whether the link invalid or not 

[alicera]

I try to give the error dropbox link format .

It can download a file (invalid file)

you can try it 

[Здравко · Accepted solution]

---

@alicera wrote:

...

```

if wget -q --method=HEAD ftp://ftp.somewhere.com/bigfile.gz;
then
echo "This page exists."
else
echo "This page does not exist."
fi

```

...

---

Hm... 🤔 @alicera, let's change it little bit:

if wget -q --method=HEAD --max-redirect 0  https://www.dropbox.com/s/abcdefg/123?dl=0 ;
then
echo "This page does not exist."
else
echo "This page exists."
fi

Is it working now? 😜

[alicera]

Thanks for your help.

Does it has the code for python with dropbox lib 

[Здравко]

@alicera, The questions you place here (including the last one) have their answers in other thread you asking for the same! Greg' proposal there is posted long before your last question. It's the same for all Dropbox supported SDKs (not just Python). There you can see too why/how my proposal works. 😉