Question

I have a script that is intended to be run by multiple users on multiple computers, and they don’t all have their Dropbox folders in their respective home directories. I’d hate to have to hard code paths in the script. I’d much rather figure out the path programatically.

Any suggestions welcome.

EDIT:
I am not using the Dropbox API in the script, the script simply reads files in a specific Dropbox folder shared between the users. The only thing I need is the path to the Dropbox folder, as I of course already know the relative path within the Dropbox file structure.

EDIT:
If it matters, I am using Windows 7.

Answer 1

I found the answer here. Setting s equal to the 2nd line in ~\AppData\Roaming\Dropbox\host.db and then decoding it with base64 gives the path.

def _get_appdata_path():
    import ctypes
    from ctypes import wintypes, windll
    CSIDL_APPDATA = 26
    _SHGetFolderPath = windll.shell32.SHGetFolderPathW
    _SHGetFolderPath.argtypes = [wintypes.HWND,
                                 ctypes.c_int,
                                 wintypes.HANDLE,
                                 wintypes.DWORD,
                                 wintypes.LPCWSTR]
    path_buf = wintypes.create_unicode_buffer(wintypes.MAX_PATH)
    result = _SHGetFolderPath(0, CSIDL_APPDATA, 0, 0, path_buf)
    return path_buf.value

def dropbox_home():
    from platform import system
    import base64
    import os.path
    _system = system()
    if _system in ('Windows', 'cli'):
        host_db_path = os.path.join(_get_appdata_path(),
                                    'Dropbox',
                                    'host.db')
    elif _system in ('Linux', 'Darwin'):
        host_db_path = os.path.expanduser('~'
                                          '/.dropbox'
                                          '/host.db')
    else:
        raise RuntimeError('Unknown system={}'
                           .format(_system))
    if not os.path.exists(host_db_path):
        raise RuntimeError("Config path={} doesn't exists"
                           .format(host_db_path))
    with open(host_db_path, 'r') as f:
        data = f.read().split()

    return base64.b64decode(data[1])