Where to find file_id for download with box-node-sdk

I know this is a really dumb question but I cannot find a clear answer: what is a file_id? If I get a shared link for one of my files I see this:

https://---.box.com/s/w6623rvaz36xucb0jlmukio5zyk6se97

Is w6623rvaz36xucb0jlmukio5zyk6se97 the file_id? Or is it found somewhere else? The file properties does not show a file_id field. If I use the string above to download in a file in box-node-sdk I get a "not_found" error.

Postman:

localhost:5000/boxapi/file/w6623rvaz36xucb0jlmukio5zyk6se97/

Node Server boxapi.js:

router.get('/file/:id', (req, res) => {

console.log(`Box API get file with ID ${req.params.id}`);

boxClient.files.getReadStream(req.params.id, null, function(error, stream) {

if (error) {

console.log(`Box API error in downloading file with ID ${req.params.id}`);

return res.status(400).json({ error: error });

}

// write the file to disk

var output = fs.createWriteStream('/public/images/test.png');

stream.pipe(output);

console.log('Box API wrote file test.png to disk');

});

response (partial):

"response": {
"statusCode": 404,
"body": {
"type": "error",
"status": 404,
"code": "not_found",
"help_url": "http://developers.box.com/docs/#errors",
"message": "Not Found",
"request_id": "w7aivvg0fg1n54or"
},

Jason

February 22, 2019 07:51

Hi !

Not a dumb question at all 🙂 You're really very close. A file ID is a numeric identifier for a file, unique across all of Box. The shared "hash" in a shared link is technically also a type of ID in the sense that it's a unique identifier for an item, but it's not the actual file ID.

To get the file ID, try this method:

https://github.com/box/box-node-sdk/blob/master/docs/shared-items.md

It'll return a numeric file ID, assuming that the link is either open or your user has access to the item via a collaboration.

If you want to see an example of what the base API call looks like (and the response), check out this section:

https://developer.box.com/reference#get-a-shared-item

A sample response is on the right hand side. Hope that helps!

Thanks,

Comments