Export Rich Text Field as a .md file to upload to Dropbox

[Isabel_Vazquez]

I’m trying to adapt the code by @Bill.French used here to upload a single long text field’s contents as a markdown document to Dropbox.

The automation is:
Trigger: When a new record is created
(records are created with nearly all fields filled at once, using Zapier, so the inputConfig fields are never empty)
Action: Run script…

// set the table name
let table = "Piece Information";

let inputConfig = input.config();
let fileContents = inputConfig.showNotes;
let fileName = inputConfig.fileID + "_" + inputConfig.fileName;
let fileNameExt = inputConfig.fileID + "_" + inputConfig.fileName + ".md";

// set the endpoint and app token
let dropboxEndpoint = "https://content.dropboxapi.com/2/files/upload";
let appToken = "<my app token>";

// set up the post options
let postOptions = {
    method: "post",
    headers: {
        "Authorization" : "Bearer " + appToken,
        "Dropbox-API-Arg" : "{\"path\": \"2021%20TC-RHDF%20Competition/ALL%20ENTRIES/"+fileNameExt+"\",\"mode\": \"add\",\"autorename\": true,\"mute\": false,\"strict_conflict\": false}",
        "Content-Type" : "application/octet-stream",
        "Accept" : "application/json",
    },
    body: fileContents
}
const postResults = await fetch(dropboxEndpoint, postOptions);
const jsonPost    = await postResults.json();

// display the dropbox upload result
output.markdown("Display Drop[box Response JSON Object");
output.inspect(jsonPost);

When I remove this section, I get no errors, but I don’t see a file uploaded in dropbox:

const postResults = await fetch(dropboxEndpoint, postOptions);
const jsonPost    = await postResults.json();

// display the dropbox upload result
output.markdown("Display Drop[box Response JSON Object");
output.inspect(jsonPost);

When I keep that section, I see this error:

SyntaxError: Unexpected token E in JSON at position 0 at main on line 40

Line 40 corresponds to: const jsonPost = await postResults.json();

Any sense what’s going wrong here?

I’m new to JavaScript and know almost nothing about JSON. I also have Zapier, on the off chance anyone knows an easier way to do this using Zapier (but it seems like the only dropbox options there are to upload a file with a .txt extension, and I need it to be a markdown file).

The reason for all of this is that I have a dropbox folder set up using JustCast to create a podcast RSS feed. Each audio file in that folder creates a podcast episode. Each audio file in that folder has a corresponding record in Airtable, with a “Summary” rich text field. Any markdown file placed into that folder with a matching file name to the audio file automatically becomes the Show Notes for the podcast episode.

Thanks for your help!!

[Bill_French]

Hi @Isabel_Vazquez and welcome to the community!

Isabel_Vazquez:

Any sense what’s going wrong here?

Yes, at that point it’s trying to parse what is expected to be a JSON object and it isn’t able to parse it. For debugging purposes, try changing it to:

const jsonPost = await postResults.text();

This will help you see what’s being sent in the response to the API call.

[Isabel_Vazquez]

Hi @Bill.French ! Thanks so much. I’ve been a lurker for a while, but noticed how active and helpful people are, so I thought I’d join the fun :slightly_smiling_face:

Setting aside for a moment that I’m getting the error message that neither ‘output.markdown’ nor ‘output.inspect’ are functions…

For debugging right now, I’m just running console.log(jsonPost) and I’m now seeing this error message:

"Error in call to API function "files/upload": HTTP header "Dropbox-API-Arg": path: '2021%20TC-RHDF%20Competition/ALL%20ENTRIES/6018C_You, Me and Pikachu.md' did not match pattern '(/(.|[\r\n])*)|(ns:[0-9]+(/.*)?)|(id:.*)'"

I thought the problem might be the filename not being encoded, but even when I adapted this line:
"Dropbox-API-Arg" : "{\"path\": \"2021%20TC-RHDF%20Competition/ALL%20ENTRIES/"+encodeURI(fileNameExt)+"\",\"mode\": \"add\",\"autorename\": true,\"mute\": false,\"strict_conflict\": false}",

I see the same error:

"Error in call to API function "files/upload": HTTP header "Dropbox-API-Arg": path: '2021%20TC-RHDF%20Competition/ALL%20ENTRIES/6018C_You,%20Me%20and%20Pikachu.md' did not match pattern '(/(.|[\r\n])*)|(ns:[0-9]+(/.*)?)|(id:.*)'"

[Isabel_Vazquez · Accepted solution]

Solved! The main issue was that I forgot to add the “/” before the file path. And none of the file path should be encoded. It’s working great now, many thanks!

Here’s the final script:

// set the table name
let table = "Piece Information";

// identify the field to be exported
let inputConfig = input.config();
let fileContents = inputConfig.showNotes;
let fileName = inputConfig.fileID + "_" + inputConfig.fileName;
let fileNameExt = inputConfig.fileID + "_" + inputConfig.fileName + ".md";


//display the contents of the file
//output.inspect(fileContents);

//
// write the file to a cloud drive service
//

// set the endpoint and app token
let dropboxEndpoint = "https://content.dropboxapi.com/2/files/upload";
let appToken = "<my app token>";

// set up the post options
let postOptions = {
    method: "post",
    headers: {
        "Authorization" : "Bearer " + appToken,
        "Dropbox-API-Arg" : "{\"path\": \"/2021 TC-RHDF Competition/ALL ENTRIES/"+ fileName +"/"+fileNameExt+"\",\"mode\": \"add\",\"autorename\": true,\"mute\": false,\"strict_conflict\": false}",
        "Content-Type" : "application/octet-stream",
        "Accept" : "application/json",
    },
    body: fileContents
}
const postResults = await fetch(dropboxEndpoint, postOptions);
const jsonPost = await postResults.text();

[Bill_French]

Isabel_Vazquez:

Setting aside for a moment that I’m getting the error message that neither ‘output.markdown’ nor ‘output.inspect’ are functions…

Yep - apologies for this - I wasn’t fully on board with your question in the actions script despite you clearly indicating such. :winking_face:

Typically, I do not debug in actions so my code is rife with references to UI components.

[Isabel_Vazquez]

No worries at all! I’m so new at this stuff, I’m not great at catching things that shouldn’t be there in different contexts.

Thanks for your help!