Binary file storage locations

Wednesday 17 May 2006 3:06:43 pm

What is the difference between the various locations in which binary files are stored (in the filesystem)?

For example:
design/standard/templates/content/datatype/view/ezbinaryfile.tpl
uses an ugly looking concat() statement to build a file path like this:
http://example.com/content/download/2763/31387/version/3/file/ENUtxt.pdf

whereas
design/standard/templates/content/datatype/view/ezbinaryfile_direct.tpl
uses $attribute.content.filepath property, which contains a filepath like this:
http://example.com/var/biotech/storage/original/application/427211c95c56412fe1da1671af5f40fc.pdf

What's the difference (apart from the fact that the second example is clearer to achieve but look uglier)?

Also, Is the second example version controlled (ie. will $attribute.content.filepath always point to the latest version of the file)?

Why are the files (apparently) stored twice?

Thursday 18 May 2006 3:17:22 pm

Thanks Bruce. [Looking at this again, I should have been able to work this out myself. Must have been a bad day ;-]

Wouldn't it be nice to have the 'passthrough' URL available as a property of the binary_file attribute, just like the filepath (ie. 'direct link'), instead of having to create it using that horrible concat() statment (with all those naughty hard-coded partial path names). Were do I apply to make this happen?