How to upload and download media files using GUNDB?

Question

I'm trying to use GUN to create a File sharing platform. I read the tutorial and API but I couldn't find a general way to upload/download a file.

I hear that there is a limitation of 5Mb of localStorage in GUN, if I want to upload a large file, I have to slice it then storage it into GUN. But right now I can't find a way to storage file into GUN.

I read the question from Retric and I know how to store the image into GUN, but can I store the other type of Files such as .zip or .doc File? Is there a general API for file storage?

Answer 1

I would recommend using IPFS for file storage and GUN to store the links to those files. GUN isn't meant for file storage I believe, primarily user/graph data. Thus the 5 MB limitation.

Answer 2

I wrote a quick little app in 35 lines of HTML to demonstrates file sharing for images, videos, sound, etc.

https://github.com/amark/gun/blob/master/examples/basic/upload.html

I've sent 20MB files thru it, tho yeah, I'm sure there is a better way of splitting it up into 2MB chunks - that is currently not automatic, you'd have to code it.

We'll have a feature in the future that will automatically split up video files. Do you want to help with this?

I think on the download side, all you have to do is make sure you have the whole file (stitch it back together if you do write a splitter upper), and add it to some <a href=" target. Actually, I'm not sure exactly how, but I know browsers support download file attributes for a few years now, where you can create a download link even of a in-memory file... but you'll have to search online for how. Then please write a tutorial and share it with the community!!