I want to export the data of my Facebook group to some sort of file for historical purposes. I understand how to use the API but I don't know what I need to do to work with it. I can make queries in the explorer but it takes way to long for it to execute. I want to know what I need to do to export the data from my group into say a text file. Even just the basic steps in order to use the API would help. Thanks
You'll need to use one of the Facebook SDK's in order to programmatically access the Facebook API. Some popular ones are the JavaScript and PHP SDK's. The docs for each contain how to make API calls, and then you can use your code to handle the response to do whatever you want with them (as long as you stay within Facebook's policies).
An example of an API call in Facebook would be (after loading the SDK and having a valid login):
FB.api('/me', function(response) {
alert(response.name);
});
Let me know if that makes sense, or if you're still unclear how to approach API calls.
You have to get the feeds of the group first using graph api. Here is the code for that.
$groupFeeds = $facebook->api('/GROUP_ID/feed/?access_token='.$accessToken);
Note : $facebook is the object created of facebook class.
You have get the access token. Also you have should have the user_group permissions to extract the feeds of group.
Related
I have to create an webpage where i need to show all the events from the past or upcoming ones from an facebook page. I have to retrive the title, description, image, time and place of every single one and make a box with it.
After that, i have to retrive all the interested people.
I'm a beginner trying to make big things! Thank you very much.
This isnt a simple problem - I have just done this so will give you a start.
You need to use Facebooks Graph API to get the data, you will need to read up on the Graph API and how to use it. Documentation can be found here. Its worth noting due to a security breach the API isn't offering all of its services to new developers currently but you can get most - read about this here.
You can query the API using any language but I suggest do it with python and use the requests module. Alternatively you could use this SDK which makes things a lot easier, trust me! With the SDK you need to get a user access token which you can get from here.
SDK
With the SDK its possible to do this
import facebook
graph = facebook.GraphAPI(access_token="your_token", version="2.12")
event = graph.get_object(id='event_id',
fields='attending_count,declined_count')
print(event['attending_count'])
print(event['declined_count'])
You can add more fields to the fields list. However you can use any language you choose to request the data, as you can just construct your own URL's.
Graph API & Requests
This is how I did it in python using requests to query the API.
import requests, json
#Make a requests session to fetch data from URL's
session = requests.Session()
session.mount('https://', requests.adapters.HTTPAdapter(max_retries=10))
#API base URL
baseUrl = 'https://graph.facebook.com/v2.11/'
#Fields you want to get
fields = ['id', 'name', 'start_time', 'end_time', 'description', 'place']
#replace CLIENT_ID and CLIENT_SECRET with ones from a facebook app (make one)
tokenPath= 'oauth/access_token?client_id={0}&client_secret={1}&&'\
'grant_type=client_credentials'.format(CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_SECRET)
#Get the generated token
token = session.get(baseUrl + tokenPath).json()['access_token']
event = session.get(baseUrl, params={
"ids": "event_id",
"fields": ",".join(fields),
"access_token": token,
}
).json()
print(event["name"])
print(event["place"])
You can make a facebook app here which is where the CLIENT_ID & CLIENT_SECRET come from.
Why would you use URL requests and not the SDK?
Using the SDK the generated user access tokens expire every day, its possible to extend them but only for 60 days. If you want to use the SDK it has a method built in which allows you to extend the token, in order to extend the token you also need to create a facebook app. Its also possible to extend tokens using this website, though I cant vouch for its security - it could potentially access and exploit your data.
To extend the token with SDK:
import facebook
graph = facebook.GraphAPI(user_access_short_lived_token)
extended_token = graph.extend_access_token(app_id, app_secret)
print(extended_token)
Using the URL approach, you create a client access token at runtime (read about user access token vs client access token here) and the token is valid so long as your app is active. So if you are going to use this a lot or want to create it and not have to change/extend tokens then use the URL approach.
Hope this gets you started.
I'm creating a custom module in Drupal, that for part of its functionality must fetch posts from a business page. So for simplicity, I'm using fbapp module as a dependency (drupal.org/project/fbapp), so that I can use it's authentication and request functions (fbapp_app_authenticate() and fbapp_graph_request()) without having to worry about the constant facebook graph updates making my own code obsolete.
I've created a facebook app, so authentication should be app token, using appid and app secret. This seems fine and I'm getting back access_token. However, when I try to read posts from a publicly available page (the clients), I get the response:
"Unsupported get request. Please read the Graph API documentation at https:\/\/developers.facebook.com\/docs\/graph-api"
Here's the queries and responses my code produces:
graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?client_id=<redacted>&client_secret=<redacted>&grant_type=client_credentials
array(1) {
["access_token"]=>
string(43) "<redacted>|<redacted>"
}
graph.facebook.com/<page_id>/posts?access_token=<redacted>|<redacted>"
string(183) "{"error":{"message":"Unsupported get request. Please read the Graph API documentation at https:\/\/developers.facebook.com\/docs\/graph-api","type":"GraphMethodException","code":100}}"
Can anyone verify a correct way to query a Facebook page programmatically, perhaps there's a setting in the page I'm querying that I need to set (although I can't find anything)?
If page restrictions apply, the page's feed can only be retrieved with an user access token as far as I know (because FB needs to evaluate the visibility criteria, and setting your app to the same restrictions doesn't help here):
See
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/reference/v2.4/page/feed#readperms
It looks like everything you have done is correct. The response you got can be (i am not sure) because you got your clients pageid wrong.
I have built a Facebook app using OpenGraph that permits the users to write reviews on concerts, so that I've defined a concert_id attribute on which the user can insert a review.
Now I would like to show all the reviews inserted for a certain concert_id but cannot find a way. If I do (in JS)
FB.api('/me/MY_APP:action', { limit: 0}, function(response) {
console.log(response);
});
I get all items. This app has to be consumed by mobile, I think it is bad to get all items and, then, filtering only the concert_id i need. What do I have to do to apply a where condition in OpenGraph to a custom action?
As far as I can tell from the API and the Facebook developer pages, it's not possible to filter a call by custom action property using the public Open Graph API.
Two options I can think of:
Option 1:
Implement the category filter by creating custom category objects:
if "review" is a custom action and
GET https://graph.facebook.com/me/[name_space]:review
returns all review actions then
GET https://graph.facebook.com/me/[name_space]:review/scifi_movie
GET https://graph.facebook.com/me/[name_space]:review/action_movie
return actions specific to movie type, where scifi_movie and action_movie are custom objects. You would need to create one object type for each category.
Option 2:
Implement a custom action for each category, e.g.
review_scifi_movie
review_action_movie
These are not particularly elegant solutions but perhaps useful as a hack if nothing else works and you really don't want to do filtering on client side.
The Facebook API will not return individual published objects for a particular action, but that's not your only problem. By the look of it, you're trying to bring in ALL the reviews given for a concert, right? (Meaning those by other users too).
The "/me/" part of the Facebook API call will only return those published actions made by the user that is currently logged in. That won't work for you, as you want those of all your users
The only suggestion I can give is to create a simple web service, where you store all the reviews given for the various concerts. Use this service to pull in reviews given for a particular concert. (I use a similar methodology for reviews in an app of my own).
I dont understand javascript or opengraph..
But when I required in JAVA to fetch reviews made by any user I have used FQL for that and It retrived me all the reviews and FQL also used to fetch all the tables related to Facebook.
I don't think that you can pull that off with the JS SDK.
You can do that in your server though, and since this is a mobile app (or has a mobile version) then that's another good reason to remove this from the client responsibility.
In the server side you can ask facebook for the published actions as you posted, filter them and then return the response.
Another thing that you can do is to save each published action in your db (on each action post you should get an id back from facebook, just persist that) and then you can easily filter the published actions according to what ever criteria you want/need (since you are no longer restricted by the facebook api).
The open graph thing is still pretty new and not tat mature, for example you can't use FQL with it, something that could have been handy for your case.
Regardless though I think that a server solution is best for calculations when mobile is concerned.
i don't know exactly but try this
if (session.authResponse) {
FB.api('/me', {
fields: 'name, picture' // here mention your fields
},
function(response) {
if (!response.error) {
//here response value
});
I am using Graph API in my application. I am fetching user's facebook wall feeds using graph API also getting details of particular post i.e (Like count,Comments etc).
but i want to allow user to Like and Comment any post from the application itself.
what is the request format for that?
Please help me or give any pointers.
Regards,
Sanket
You would be well served to check out the Publishing section of the documentation. It provides information such as this.
One example is liking, which is defined as:
Method: /OBJECT_ID/likes
Description: Like the given object (if it has a /likes connection)
Arguments: none
Basically, just initiate a Graph API call to something like:
[facebookObject requestWithGraphPath:#"98423808305/likes" andDelegate:self];
That will "like" a picture from Coca-Cola (ID taken from the documentation).
Edit 1
According to the documentation:
Most write operations require extended permissions for the active user. See the authentication guide for details on how you can request extended permissions from the user during the authentication step.
Are you sure you have enough privileges? Unfortunately the documentation is very unclear as to whether it serves the dual purpose of liking the object and returning the likes already on that object.
Edit 2
I did some more research into what could be causing this and came across this question and answer that indicated that the code I posted above using requestWithGraphPath:: should work. However, it does not due to a bug on Facebook's Bug Tracker.
Unfortunately, it looks like there is no way to "like" an object via the Graph API, which seems very strange to me. Perhaps it is possible with the legacy REST API instead of the Graph API?
Edit 3
Well, it looks like your best bet is the stream.addLike method of the legacy REST API which you can still call using the Facebook iOS SDK. You should be able to use the stream.addLike method to "like" something in the "stream". Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to support photos, videos, etc. Only posts and comments.
Finally i found the solution for LIKE option
We should use following method for like option.
-(void) requestWithGraphPath:(NSString *)graphPath
andParams:(NSMutableDictionary *)params
andHttpMethod:(NSString *)httpMethod
andDelegate:(id <FBRequestDelegate>)delegate
graphPath = /OBJECT_ID/likes
Paramas = dictionary with comment ,for like option use empty dictionary
HttpMethod should be POST
you should get response = true if the LIKE request is successful.
What's the difference between accessing user data with the Facebook Graph API (http://graph.facebook.com/btaylor) and using the Graph API to make a FQL query of the same user (https://api.facebook.com/method/fql.query?query=QUERY).
Also, does anyone know which of them the Facebook Developer Toolkit (for ASP.NET) uses?
The reason I ask is because I'm trying to access the logged in user's birthday after they begin a Facebook Connect session on my site, but when I use the toolkit it doesn't return it. However, if I make a manual call to the Graph API for that user object, it does return it. It's possible I might have something wrong with my call from the toolkit. I think I may need to include the session key, but I'm not sure how to get it. Here's the code I'm using:
_connectSession = new ConnectSession(APPLICATION_KEY, SECRET_KEY);
try
{
if (!_connectSession.IsConnected())
{
// Not authenticated, proceed as usual.
statusResponse = "Please sign-in with Facebook.";
}
else
{
// Authenticated, create API instance
_facebookAPI = new Api(_connectSession);
// Load user
user user = _facebookAPI.Users.GetInfo();
statusResponse = user.ToString();
ViewData["fb_user"] = user;
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
//An error happened, so disconnect session
_connectSession.Logout();
statusResponse = "Please sign-in with Facebook.";
}
The Graph API and FQL are similar in that they both access the same underlying Facebook objects: the nodes that are collectively referred to as "the social graph". The Graph API is a simple, uniform, and fairly direct way to access these objects. If you know exactly what you're looking for, the Graph API is a simple way to get it.
FQL, on the other hand, is a query language (like SQL). It allows you to search for graph objects that would be impossible (or complicated) to find using the simple, direct Graph API.
Another big feature FQL has over the Graph API is the ability to batch multiple queries into a single call (which can save you a lot of time in roundtrips for multipart queries).
Ultimately, the Graph API seems a more direct representation of what's going on "under the covers" in the social graph, so I find it simpler to use when I can. But if my Graph API request is getting really long or incomprehensible (or any time I need to make more than one related query of the social graph), that's the sign that it's time to switch over to FQL.
It seems the reason I couldn't get the birthday and other information I was looking for was because I didn't have a complete list of all the extended permissions that could be requested. I finally found the list at http://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/permissions (which included user_birthday).
If anyone has info about the FQL vs. Graph Object question, I'd still be interested in that. Though I think they are basically the same thing.
Looks like that have changed it (yes yet again). Because you are using facebook connect, you can ask for the permissions to give you the needed info for example user's birthday something like:
<fb:login-button perms="email,user_birthday"></fb:login-button>
More Information:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/web#login