strongloop loopback: how to add remote method to loopback-component-storage Container

Question

I'm trying to add a new REST API method to the loopback-component-storage for downloading all photos from a Container. (see Strongloop loopback-storage-service: how to use StorageService.downloadStream() to download a ZIP of all photos in container?)

The following code seems to work, but I'd like to know how to load the storage-handler, handler, and filesystem provider, factory, correctly within the strongloop framework. Also, I shouldn't have to copy the data in datasources.json

Any suggestions?

// http://localhost/api/containers/container1/downloadContainer/IMG_0799.PNG

// file: ./server/models/container.js
loopback_component_storage_path = "../../node_modules/loopback-component-storage/lib/";

datasources_json_storage = {
  "name": "storage",
  "connector": "loopback-component-storage",
  "provider": "filesystem",
  "root": "svc/storage",
  "_options": {
    "getFileName": "",
    "allowedContentTypes": "",
    "maxFileSize": "",
    "acl": ""
  }
};

handler = require(loopback_component_storage_path + './storage-handler');

factory = require(loopback_component_storage_path + './factory');

module.exports = function(Container) {
  Container.downloadContainer = function(container, files, res, ctx, cb) {
    var provider;
    provider = factory.createClient(datasources_json_storage);
    return handler.download(provider, null, res, container, files, cb);
  };
  Container.remoteMethod('downloadContainer', {
    shared: true,
    accepts: [
      {arg: 'container', type: 'string', 'http': {source: 'path'}},
      {arg: 'files', type: 'string', 'http': {source: 'path'}},
      {arg: 'res', type: 'object', 'http': {source: 'res'}}
    ],
    returns: [],
    http: {
      verb: 'get',
      path: '/:container/downloadContainer/:files'
    }
  });

Answer 1

From within the container.js model file, you can easily access the StorageService you have defined in datasources.json. Once you have that, you can just call its download() method. No need to instantiate (redundantly and with every request) factory or handler in your code.

service = Container.app.dataSources.{SourceName}.connector
service.download(container, file, res, cb)