boxfs

Implementation of the fsspec protocol for Box content management, enabling you to interface with files stored on Box using a file-system-like navigation.

Installation

You can install boxfs from PyPI. Use the following command:

pip install boxfs

To use install the optional upath dependency, use the following command

pip install boxfs[upath]

Example

import fsspec
from boxsdk import JWTAuth

oauth = JWTAuth.from_settings_file("PATH/TO/JWT_CONFIGURATION.json")
root_id = "<ID-of-file-system-root>"

### For simple file access, you can use `fsspec.open`
with fsspec.open("box://Documents/test_file.txt", "wb", oauth=oauth, root_id=root_id) as f:
    f.write("This file was produced using boxfs")

### For more control, you can use `fsspec.filesystem`
fs = fsspec.filesystem('box', oauth=oauth, root_id=root_id)
# List directory contents
fs.ls("Documents")
# Make new directory
fs.mkdir("Documents/Test Folder")
# Remove a directory
fs.rmdir("Documents/Test Folder")

# Open and write file
with fs.open("Documents/test_file.txt", "wb") as f:
    f.write("This file was updated using boxfs")

# Print file contents
fs.cat("Documents/test_file.txt")
# Delete file
fs.rm("Documents/test_file.txt")

# If you installed with the `upath` extra, you can also use the universal-pathlib UPath
# class.
from upath import UPath
path = UPath("Documents", fs=fs) / "test_file.txt"
path.read_text()

Storage Options

The following storage options are accepted by fsspec when creating a BoxFileSystem object:

• oauth: Box app OAuth2 configuration dictionary, e.g. loaded from JWTAuth.from_settings_file, by default None
• client: An already instantiated boxsdk Client object
• client_type: Type of Client class to use when connecting to box

If client is provided, it is used for handling API calls. Otherwise, the file system to instantiate a new client connection, of type client_type, using the provided oauth configuration.

• root_id: Box ID (as str) of folder where file system root is placed, by default None
• root_path: Path (as str) to Box root folder, must be relative to user's root (e.g. "All Files"). The client must have access to the application user's root folder (i.e., it cannot be downscoped to a subfolder)

If only root_id is provided, the root_path is determined from API calls. If only root_path is provided, the root_id is determined from API calls. If neither is provided, the application user's root folder is used.

• path_map: Mapping of paths to object ID strings, used to populate initial lookup cache for quick directory navigation
• scopes: List of permissions to which the API token should be restricted. If None (default), no restrictions are applied. If scopes are provided, the client connection is (1) downscoped to use only the provided scopes, and (2) restricted to the directory/subdirectories of the root folder.

Creating a Box App

Before you can use boxfs, you will need a Box application through which you can route your API calls. To do so, you can follow the steps for "Setup with JWT" in the Box Developer documentation. The JWT configuration .json file that you generate will have to be stored locally and loaded using JWTAuth.from_settings_file. You also have to add your application's Service Account as a collaborator on the root folder of your choosing, or you will only have access to the Box application's files.