Saving a file using Google Drives API to a specific location

I have a PHP app that saves some information into a .CSV file. I want to upload it to my Google Drive.

This seems to upload the file:

$service = new Google_Service_Drive($client);

$fileMetadata = new Google_Service_Drive_DriveFile(array(
    'name'      => 'file.csv',
    'parents'    => [$FOLDER_ID]
));

$file = $service->files->create($fileMetadata, array(
    'data' => $product_data,
    'mimeType' => 'application/octet-stream',
    'uploadType' => 'multipart',
    'fields' => 'id'
));

This has some weird issues:

To upload it to a specific folder, I have to know the FILE ID, as opposed to simply adding the path.
It will continuously add files with the same name instead of overwriting the file.

After some research, I can use $service->files->update to overwrite the existing file. However, to do that, I would need to know the $file_id.

Is there a way to upload files using the path, as opposed to IDS? Is there a way to create the file if it doesn't exist, or overwrite it if it does?

I can only think of two ways to do this:

Hardcode the file name and DIR ids, then update it if it ever changes.
Write code that scans the drive to figure out if the folder and file ids

I am adapting from the Dropbox API, which comparatively was much more intuitive.

Any help is appreciated - thanks

Solution

Save file in a specific folder using folder name

After spending time exploring the Google Drive API, I was not able to find a way to directly to save a file to a specific folder by providing the path of the folder, however, I have found a possible alternative way of accomplising the same desired result by providing the name of the folder as a parameter of files.list method to retrive the folder id and then use it in the file.update method to achieve the other goal of overwriting a file inside the folder.

Sample Code

GET [https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files?q=name%3D'asd'&key=[YOUR_API_KEY]](https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files?q=name%3D'asd'&key=%5BYOUR_API_KEY%5D) HTTP/1.1

Authorization: Bearer [YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN] 
Accept: application/json

Sample Output

{
  "kind": "drive\#fileList",
  "incompleteSearch": false,
  "files":
  [
    {
      "kind": "drive\#file",
      "mimeType": "application/vnd.google-apps.folder",
      "id": "1MYKnoK187EnkJpVQ\_N8z0PkNeK9Px6Gp",
      "name": "asd"
    }
  ]
}

Note:

I tested this approach using Google API Explorer

References:

Drive API

Method: files.list