How do you construct the URL to access a google docs/drive folder?

Question

I am trying to figure out how to make a raw request to Google drive to access a public folder.

https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files?q=0B-eVxZFKAu61TmFQUUFPbzBmVVU&key=__________

However, that URL gives the following error:

{
 "error": {
  "errors": [
   {
    "domain": "global",
    "reason": "invalid",
    "message": "Invalid Value",
    "locationType": "parameter",
    "location": "q"
   }
  ],
  "code": 400,
  "message": "Invalid Value"
 }
}

Which tells me that perhaps I'm not supposed to pass the ID of the folder inside q=.

On a related note, I know you can access individual public files with a request like this:

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=_____

Answer 1

You are correct in that you have passed an invalid value for the q parameter. The q parameter receives a combination of fields, values and operators. You passed the the folder id through q, but you didn't specify which field to match that id with.

What you need to pass to q is '0B-eVxZFKAu61TmFQUUFPbzBmVVU' in parents (don't leave out the single-quotes!). So, your query would look like: https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v2/files?q='0B-eVxZFKAu61TmFQUUFPbzBmVVU'+in+parents&key={YOUR_API_KEY}.

Check out this API page to learn more about the format to use for q.