I run a service that is visited by its users to generate PDF documents that are then delivered to them by email. I am in the process of exploring an alternative delivery route - popping the prepared document directly in a Dropbox folder that they designate.
After a spot of research I discovered the Dropbox API and then played with their "explorer" here. Examining the cURL they generate to perform a file upload I found that it could quite easily be done with a spot of PHP. After creating a new app I then wrote out a little PHP script
$headers = array('Authorization: Bearer ul...',
'Content-Type: application/octet-stream',
'Dropbox-API-Arg: {"path":"/test.txt","mode":"add"}');
$data = 'Betty bought a bit of butter';
$ch = curl_init('https://content.dropboxapi.com/2-beta-2/files/upload/');
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,$headers);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POST,true);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,$data);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,true);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
echo $response;
On running this script everything worked just perfectly - the file in question turned up in my Dropbox in a fraction of a second.
All very nice. However, I am into my first few minutes with the Dropbox API and there is much that I do not understand here
- Is the code I wrote above by blindly mimicking their explorer sample code the right way to do file uploads?
- In my case it is the users of my service who will have to provide me with a valid App token I can use above in the
Authorization:Bearer...bit. I assume that this token constrains me to only working within the confines of their app folder? They would, naturally, be unwilling to hand over a token that lets me do what I will with their Dropbox. *Needless to say - this would be conditional on their configuring their "App" permission type to App Folder.
I'd much appreciate any feedback I can get on my approach - particularly the flaws in it - from those who know the Dropbox API better than I.
