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I have a Google drive URL that is
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0AwlAqojdgwiCNW5ZcnZYSXB0eW8/image?pagenumber=1&w=800
Can someone please explain what the part
0AwlAqojdgwiCNW5ZcnZYSXB0eW8/image?pagenumber=1&w=800
means? I am building something that connects to the Google Drive but I need to know what this part is. EDIT: The initial 13 characters are the user id constant for a user
The part after the last slash of a file's URL that is hosted in Google Drive of Google Editors could vary depending if the URL has the purpose to be used to share the file to someone without a Google account, the format to be used to publish the content to the web and include parameters to modify how the content will be published or displayed.
Instead of filenames for URL Google Drive and Docs editors uses a "file key" so if the user changes the filename the URL still works.
The "file key" is between the last two slashes [/]. The part after the last slash could vary depending if the URL has the purpose to share the file to someone without a Google account, the format to be used i.e. to publish the content to the web and include parameters to modify how the content will be published or displayed.
/view for previewing a file in a web browser
/preview for embedding file in a HTML web page
/edit for editing a file
/pubhtml is used when a document, spreadsheet or slide is published to the web.
/pub is used when a drawing is published as image
For web site hosting is possible to use filenames in URLs but this require that file are in a public folder.
That is called encryption. It is purposely done so for better security, like for example say you had a master username & password list in Google drive and it would look like this:
https://docs.google.com/file/master-username&password-list.doc
Then one would easily want to get a hold of that file. Although not all Google drive files are yet fully encrypted, this is a false Window feature that already hides the basic title information. The URL also appears to stay the same regardless of Public or Private sharing between users. However, you can use hyperlinks to shorten the URL into a word.
Here you can read more about Google Drive encryption.
