Copying a file from one collection to another in a hook (preferably JS) #6792

robMolloy · 2025-05-02T15:07:55Z

robMolloy
May 2, 2025

If someone has the answer in Go I will be very grateful for that also.

I am trying to copy a record from the files collection (where the file is stored on the "file" key) into the fileVersionHistory collection. All fields will stay the same other than a new id is assigned and the old will become a relation to the file that has been copied.

My problem is that when using $filesystem.fileFromPath(fullPath); it always returns with "no such file or directory" error. If it's possible to not deal with the file and instead I can just copy over the file path that would be even better.

onRecordAfterUpdateSuccess((e) => {
  console.log("after successful file updated");
  
  // hardcoded for dev (to avoid race conditions / async issues)
  const id = "800w51c58qad2t7"; 
  // const id = e.record.id
  const record = $app.findRecordById("files", id); // use e.record once resolved
  const fullPath = record.baseFilesPath() + "/" + record.get("file");
  try {
    const file = $filesystem.fileFromPath(fullPath);
    console.log(3, file);
  } catch (error) {
    console.log(4, error);
  }
  /*
   *
   * use the above to get file 
   *
   */
  if (!file) return e.next();
  const collection = $app.findCollectionByNameOrId("filesVersionHistory");
  const record = new Record(collection);
  record.set("file", file);
  record.set("fileRelationId", id);
  record.set("directoryRelationId", e.record.get("directoryRelationId"));
  $app.save(record);
  e.next();
}, "files");

Answered by ganigeorgiev

May 2, 2025

$filesystem.fileFromPath(fullPath) expects a valid path to a file from the local filesystem. If you are not using S3, you can make it work by constructing the full path to the file, aka.:

const fullPath = $app.dataDir() + "/storage/" + record.baseFilesPath() + "/" + record.get("file")

If you want a more universal solution that will work with both the local filesystem and S3 then you'll have to use the filesystem abstraction apis - https://pocketbase.io/docs/js-filesystem/#reading-files. The only caveat is that the JSVM currently doesn't have exposed helpers to work efficiently with io.Reader values and the file will be read entirely in memory for the request duration which could be a prob…

View full answer

ganigeorgiev · 2025-05-02T15:36:22Z

ganigeorgiev
May 2, 2025
Maintainer

$filesystem.fileFromPath(fullPath) expects a valid path to a file from the local filesystem. If you are not using S3, you can make it work by constructing the full path to the file, aka.:

const fullPath = $app.dataDir() + "/storage/" + record.baseFilesPath() + "/" + record.get("file")

If you want a more universal solution that will work with both the local filesystem and S3 then you'll have to use the filesystem abstraction apis - https://pocketbase.io/docs/js-filesystem/#reading-files. The only caveat is that the JSVM currently doesn't have exposed helpers to work efficiently with io.Reader values and the file will be read entirely in memory for the request duration which could be a problem if you are allowing large file uploads.

const filename = record.get("file")
const fileKey = record.baseFilesPath() + "/" + filename
let fsys, reader;
try {
    // initialize the filesystem
    fsys = $app.newFilesystem();
    // retrieve a file reader for the file key
    // 
    // note: this method will be soft-deprecated and renamed to getReader to avoid confusion with $filesystem.File
    // in v0.28.0+ release (it is in the develop branch but there are no ETAs yet)
    reader = fsys.getFile(fileKey)
    // create a $filesystem.File instance from the reader's content
    const file = $filesystem.fileFromBytes(toString(reader), "")
    // overwrite the name fields to be the same as the original one
    file.name = filename
    file.originalName = file.name
    const collection = $app.findCollectionByNameOrId("filesVersionHistory");
    const record = new Record(collection);
    record.set("file", file);
    record.set("fileRelationId", id);
    record.set("directoryRelationId", e.record.get("directoryRelationId"));
    ... 
} finally {
    reader?.close();
    fsys?.close();
}

(I'll consider in the future to expose to the JSVM methods to construct filesystem.File values directly from a io.Reader values)

The equivalent Go filesystem APIs could be found in https://pocketbase.io/docs/go-filesystem/#reading-files.

Side-note: if you want to access the old/original record fields you can call e.record.original() (see https://pocketbase.io/docs/js-records/#copies).

Edit: updated the example with the correct $filesystem.fileFromBytes method name.

3 replies

robMolloy May 2, 2025
Author

Thanks Gani, I'll try this thanks. Pocketbase is amazing, thanks so much for what you've made!

ganigeorgiev May 3, 2025
Maintainer

Just for info in case someone stumble here: I've added in the develop branch new filesystem.System.GetReuploadableFile(fileKey string, preserveName bool) method that will be available with the next v0.28.0 release (there are no ETAs yet). It could simplify the above code sample to something like:

const filename = record.get("file")
const fileKey = record.baseFilesPath() + "/" + filename
let fsys;
try {
    // initialize the filesystem
    fsys = $app.newFilesystem();
    // avaialble with v0.28.0+
    const file = fsys.getReuploadableFile(fileKey, true)
    const collection = $app.findCollectionByNameOrId("filesVersionHistory");
    const record = new Record(collection);
    record.set("file", file);
    record.set("fileRelationId", id);
    record.set("directoryRelationId", e.record.get("directoryRelationId"));
    ... 
} finally {
    fsys?.close();
}

Under the hood, it will send a call to retrieve first the attributes (size, original name) of the provided fileKey and then wrap its reader as ready to be reuploaded *filesystem.File value.

robMolloy May 6, 2025
Author

Just FYI this worked. Here is the final code;

onRecordAfterUpdateSuccess((e) => {
  console.log("after successful file updated");
  let versionHistorySettingRecord = $app.findFirstRecordByFilter(
    "settings",
    "settingName = 'versionHistory'",
  );
  if (!versionHistorySettingRecord) return e.next();
  if (!versionHistorySettingRecord.get("isEnabled")) return e.next();
  const id = e.record.id;
  const fullPath =
    $app.dataDir() + "/storage/" + e.record.baseFilesPath() + "/" + e.record.get("file");
  const getFileFromPath = (path) => {
    let fsys, file;
    try {
      fsys = $app.newFilesystem();
      file = $filesystem.fileFromPath(path);
    } catch (error) {
      console.log(/*LL*/ 151, error);
    }
    fsys?.close();
    return file;
  };
  const file = getFileFromPath(fullPath);
  if (!file) return e.next();
  const collection = $app.findCollectionByNameOrId("filesVersionHistory");
  const record = new Record(collection);
  record.set("file", file);
  record.set("fileRelationId", id);
  record.set("directoryRelationId", e.record.get("directoryRelationId"));
  record.set("isStarred", e.record.get("isStarred"));
  record.set("name", e.record.get("name"));
  record.set("size", e.record.get("size"));
  $app.save(record);
  e.next();
}, "files")

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