How upload a file to Dropbox with dropbox.js?

Question

ORIGINAL

I'm having problems to upload a file (image) to Dropbox from Node.js using the official dropbox.js. I want to upload a picture that I have in another server. For example with the dropbpox icon (www.dropbox.com/static/images/new_logo.png).

client.writeFile(file, 'www.dropbox.com/static/images/new_logo.png', function(error, stat) {
 if (error) {
  return es.send(error.status);  // Something went wrong.
 }

 res.send("File saved as revision " + stat.revisionTag);
});

I know that this only creates a text file with the url, but how I can upload the picture to Dropbox? I also try to download the file using http.get and then upload this to dropbox but it doesn't work.

Thanks.

UPDATE WITH MORE INFO

First I download the image from a remote url with this code:

var request = http.get(options, function(res){
        var imagedata = ''
        res.setEncoding('binary')

        res.on('data', function(chunk){
            imagedata += chunk
        }) 

        res.on('end', function(){ 
            console.log("Image downloaded!");

            fs.writeFile(local, imagedata, 'binary', function(err){
              if (err) throw err
              console.log('File saved.')
            })
        })
    })

The file is saved correctly. Then I trie to things:

Sending the 'imagedata' to Dropbox:

  console.log("Image downloaded!");

            client.writeFile(file, imagedata, function(error, stat) {
                if (error) {
                    return response.send(error.status);  // Something went wrong.
                }

                response.send("File saved as revision " + stat.revisionTag);
            });

And something is uploaded to Dropbox but it's nothing useful.

Then I also tried to read the file from disc and then send it to Dropbox but it doesn't work neither:

fs.readFile(file, function(err, data) {

Answer 1

Use dropbox-js 0.9.1-beta1 or above to upload binary files from node.js. You need to pass it Buffer or ArrayBuffer instances. Try this code:

var req = http.get(options, function(res) {
  var chunks = [];

  res.on('data', function(chunk) {
    chunks.push(chunk);
  });

  res.on('end', function() {
    console.log("Image downloaded!");

    var imageData = Buffer.concat(chunks);
    client.writeFile(file, imageData, function(error, stat) {
      if (error) {
        return response.send(error.status);
      }
      response.send("File saved as revision " + stat.revisionTag);
    });
  });
});

```

Original answer: the dropbox-js README mentions that binary files don't work in node.js just yet.

Answer 2

I had issue as well, I just copied and modified a bit on the old dropbox-node npm(which is now deprecated), but I added following function on dropbox.js.

Client.prototype.writeFileNodejs = function(path, data, callback) {
  var self = this;
  fs.readFile(data.path, function(err, data) {
    if (err) return callback(err);
    var uri = "" + self.urls.putFile + "/" + (self.urlEncodePath(path));

    if (typeof data === 'function') callback = data, data = undefined;
    var oauth = {
      consumer_key: self.oauth.key
    , consumer_secret: self.oauth.secret
    , token: self.oauth.token
    , token_secret: self.oauth.tokenSecret
    };

    var requestOptions = { uri: uri, oauth: oauth };
    requestOptions.body = data;

    return request['put'](requestOptions, callback ?
      function(err, res, body) {
        if (err) return callback(err);
        var contentType = res.headers['content-type'];

        // check if the response body is in JSON format
        if (contentType === 'application/json' ||
            contentType === 'text/javascript') {
          body = JSON.parse(body);
          if (body.error) {
            var err = new Error(body.error);
            err.statusCode = res.statusCode;
            return callback(err);
          }

        } else if (errors[res.statusCode]) {
          var err = new Error(errors[res.statusCode]);
          err.statusCode = res.statusCode;
          return callback(err);
        }

        // check for metadata in headers
        if (res.headers['x-dropbox-metadata']) {
          var metadata = JSON.parse(res.headers['x-dropbox-metadata']);
        }

        callback(null, body, metadata);
      } : undefined);
  });
};

As well you would like to require request and fs to do this.

var request = require('request'),
    fs = require('fs');