How can I use the Box Java SDK to create a shared link without specifying the share type?

Question

In Box API v1, it was possible to request creation of a shared link for a file or folder, without caring about what kind of sharing was required. In fact, it was not possible to ask for a particular type of share - you just used the public_share method and passed in the target type (file/folder) and target ID, and optionally a share password. In an Enterprise Account, for instance, this might result in the maximum access level being "company" or "collaborators", if public links are disallowed.

With Box API v2, according to the docs here, you need to specify an access parameter that has to be "open", "company", or "collaborators".

The problem is, using the wrong type may cause the share to fail. For instance, in a folder/account that only allows collaborators, I get a 400 error if I ask for a "open" share.

What I really want is to get exactly the same result as if the user clicked the "Share" link in the Box web site. Which is, it should enable sharing for the file but default the level appropriately.

Is there a way to do this with v2, without the admin having to tell us their "preferred" access level for shared links we create? I'm using the Java SDK, like this:

BoxItemRequestObject req = BoxItemRequestObject.createSharedLinkRequestObject(BoxSharedLinkRequestObject.createSharedLinkRequestObject("open"));

BoxItem item = itemsManager.createSharedLink(<ID>, req, BoxResourceType.FILE);

Thanks,

Ben Gilbert

Smartsheet.com

Answer 1

Just set the access to the empty set {}

So your request would look like this:

{"shared_link": {}}

Answer 2

I figured out how to make this work. I need to set access to null when creating the BoxSharedLinkRequestObject, like this:**

BoxItemRequestObject req = BoxItemRequestObject.createSharedLinkRequestObject(BoxSharedLinkRequestObject.createSharedLinkRequestObject(null));

This doesn't produce quite the same JSON as was recommended (shared_link: {}), but it does produce JSON that is apparently equivalent: shared_link: { access: null }. I couldn't figure out any way to produce an empty shared_link object using the SDK -- I either had to have a null shared_link (which didn't work at all) or some value for the access field.