Michael Schilli > Net-Google-Drive-Simple-0.02 > Net::Google::Drive::Simple



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Module Version: 0.02   Source   Latest Release: Net-Google-Drive-Simple-0.08


Net::Google::Drive::Simple - Simple modification of Google Drive data


    use Net::Google::Drive::Simple;

      # requires a ~/.google-drive.yml file with an access token, 
      # see description below.
    my $gd = Net::Google::Drive::Simple->new();

    my $children = $gd->children( "/folder/path" );

    for my $child ( @$children ) {

        next if $child->kind() ne 'drive#file';

        next if !$child->can( "downloadUrl" );

        print $child->originalFilename(), 
              " can be downloaded at ",


Net::Google::Drive::Simple authenticates with a user's Google Drive and offers several convenience methods to list, retrieve, and modify the data stored in the 'cloud'. See eg/google-drive-upsync as an example on how to keep a local directory in sync with a remote directory on Google Drive.


To get the access token required to access your Google Drive data via this module, you need to run the script eg/google-drive-init in this distribution.

Before you run it, you need to register your 'app' with Google Drive and obtain a client_id and a client_secret from


Then, replace the following lines in eg/google-drive-init with the values received:

      # You need to obtain a client_id and a client_secret from
      # https://developers.google.com/drive to use this.
    my $client_id     = "XXX";
    my $client_secret = "YYY";

Then run the script. It'll start a web server on port 8082 on your local machine. When you point your browser at http://localhost:8082, you'll see a link that will lead you to Google Drive's login page, where you authenticate and then allow the app (specified by client_id and client_secret above) access to your Google Drive data. The script will then receive an access token from Google Drive and store it in ~/.google-drive.yml from where other scripts can pick it up and work on the data stored on the user's Google Drive account. Make sure to limit access to ~/.google-drive.yml, because it contains the access token that allows everyone to manipulate your Google Drive data. It also contains a refresh token that this library uses to get a new access token transparently when the old one is about to expire.



Constructor, creates a helper object to retrieve Google Drive data later. Takes an optional name of the .google-drive.yml file

        config_file => "gd.yml",

or uses ~/.google-drive.yml in the user's home directory as default.

my $children = $gd->children( "/path/to" )

Return the entries under a given path on the Google Drive as a reference to an array. Each entry is an object composed of the JSON data returned by the Google Drive API. Each object offers methods named like the fields in the JSON data, e.g. originalFilename(), downloadUrl, etc.

Will return all entries found unless maxResults is set:

    my $children = $gd->children( "/path/to", { maxResults => 3 } )

Due to the somewhat capricious ways Google Drive handles its directory structures, the method needs to traverse the path component by component and determine the ID of each directory to get to the next level. To speed up subsequent lookups, it also returns the ID of the last component to the caller:

    my( $children, $parent ) = $gd->children( "/path/to" );

If the caller now wants to e.g. insert a file into the directory, its ID is available in $parent.

Each child comes back as a files#resource type and gets mapped into an object that offers access to the various fields via methods:

    for my $child ( @$children ) {
        print $child->kind(), " ", $child->title(), "\n";

Please refer to


for details on which fields are available.

my $files = $gd->files( )

Return all files on the drive as a reference to an array. Will return all entries found unless maxResults is set:

    my $files = $gd->files( "/path/to", { maxResults => 3 } )

Note that Google limits the number of entries returned by default to 100, and seems to restrict the maximum number of files returned by a single query to 3,500, even if you specify higher values for maxResults.

Each file comes back as an object that offers access to the Google Drive item's fields, according to the API (see children()).

my $id = $gd->folder_create( "folder-name", $parent_id )

Create a new folder as a child of the folder with the id $parent_id. Returns the ID of the new folder or undef in case of an error.

$gd->file_upload( $file, $dir_id )

Uploads the content of the file $file into the directory with the ID $dir_id on Google Drive. Uses $file as the file name.

To overwrite an existing file on Google Drive, specify the file's ID as an optional parameter:

    $gd->file_upload( $file, $dir_id, $file_id );


Net::Google::Drive::Simple is Log4perl-enabled. To find out what's going on under the hood, turn on Log4perl:

    use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);




2012, Mike Schilli <cpan@perlmeister.com>

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