Download a file from the Dropbox account into an output stream.

Aurelian R.

Hello

I download a file from Dropbox using the following code from the Dropbox API:

public final OutputStream downloadDropBoxFileAtOutputStream(final String dropBoxFilePath, String localFilePath) {
    OutputStream outputStream = null;
    try {
        outputStream = new FileOutputStream(localFilePath);
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        LOGGER.error(e.getMessage());
    }
    try {
        DbxEntry.File downloadedFile = null;
        try {
            downloadedFile = client.getFile(dropBoxFilePath, null,
                    outputStream);
        } catch (DbxException | IOException e) {
            LOGGER.error(e.getMessage());
        }
    } finally {
        try {
            outputStream.close();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            LOGGER.error(e.getMessage());
        }
    }
    return outputStream;
}

I want to pass the resulted output stream to another method without saving the file on the local disk. Is is this possible with the Dropbox core java API ?

Best Regards,

Aurelian

Greg-DB

The getFile method will just write the file contents to whatever OutputStream you supply, which doesn't necessarily need to be a FileOutputStream like the example in the documentation shows. That being the case, you supply a different kind of OutputStream to send the data to wherever you want. For example, a PipedOutputStream may make sense, depending on your scenario.

Alternatively, you may want to use startGetFile which returns a DbxClient.Downloader instead, which has an InputStream with the file's contents as the body field, which may suit your use case better.