Is there a simple, reliable and potentially future-proof way to extract a graph ID from the API given any facebook URL? By "any facebook URL" I mean the URL for a personal profile, page, group, etc. All these things have various formats so I imagine there must be something in the graph API to definitively convert a facebook URL into an ID, right?
No, there isn't a way to do this simply within the API. You will need a set of pattern matching to match the various types of urls to extract either the id (album,note,photo,status) or username.
For example
Photos
facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10100213582161431&set=p.10100213582161431&type=1&theater
https://graph.facebook.com/10100213582161431
Posts
facebook.com/zuck/posts/10100210345757211
https://graph.facebook.com/10100210345757211
Pages
facebook.com/pages/Joel-Spolsky/106083232757300
graph.facebook.com/106083232757300
Videos
facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150398154330484
graph.facebook.com/0150398154330484
Events
facebook.com/events/138745136241434/
etc ...
Then it gets further complicated that even if you were able to get a silver bullet function that handles all these links your app would need to grant access to numerous permissions in order to access certain objects.
You may be able to get away with most links that have the id at the end but not all. So you can maybe use a regular expression catching links that end in numeric characters.
There is! You are looking for the object_url table, which you can query using FQL or directly with a request. See here: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/fql/object_url/
EDIT:
You can also do this, but obviously less optimal:
function getObjectByUrl(url, cb) {
FB.api("/" + url.replace(/^.*?www.facebook.com/, ""), cb);
}
Related
From my understanding, we can retrieve user information via something like this:
$cordovaFacebook.api(
"me?fields=name,email,picture", ["public_profile", "email"])
.then(function (response) {
console.log(response);
}, error);
How can we directly get all available information without listing out one by one?
How can we directly get all available information without listing out one by one?
You can’t.
With API v2.4, Facebook has reduced the number of fields returned by default for the various endpoints, to improve performance (especially with regard to mobile connections.)
That was a deliberate decision – and to allow for a “way around” it, would just make a lot of lazy-a** developers still just request them all ;-)
Perhaps you have heard at some point, that in SQL f.e. a SELECT * is considered bad practice as well – this is pretty much the same case here. You are supposed to explicitly ask for the data you need now – and not just go “I’ll request it all, and figure out what I could possible use it for later.”
If you are not sure what fields are available for a certain endpoint – then either consult the documentation for that endpoint, or use Introspection to get a list of all fields.
For python, library Facepy already wrap the get function to get all fields possible.
Given the URL of a public Facebook post, how can one find the post object in the FB Graph API? (secondarily, why are so many user feeds empty or nearly empty when accessed through the API?)
We would like to be able to comment on or like a post via the v2.x
Graph API, given the post's URL. Doing so requires the post's object
ID, which we can make some educated guesses about, but accessing
the actual object through the API has proven unreliable (works for some posts but
not others).
v2 of the API introduced app-scoped user IDs, and post IDs generally seem
to be of the form {app-scoped user id}_{unique post id}. Here are the
details of some attempts to find posts in the API with various combinations of
these IDs (global user id, app-scoped user id, and post id).
Starting with a simple example: https://www.facebook.com/evan.prodromou/posts/10153023417510505. Key characteristics are that it's public, it's not a share of another post, and most importantly it has no photo(s), which add extra ids and URLs for the individual photo(s) and photo set. Evan's profile is also public, i.e. https://www.facebook.com/evan.prodromou doesn't show the generic This content is currently unavailable
Trying the bare post id from that URL, /v1.0/10153023417510505 and /v2.2/10153023417510505 both give the Unsupported get request (code 100) error.
Evan's global user id is 525575504. Attaching that as a prefix, /v1.0/525575504_10153023417510505 and /v2.2/525575504_10153023417510505 still both give the same Unsupported get request error.
Same error using his app-scoped user id instead, /v2.2/10152350676805505_10153023417510505.
OK let's try the other direction. We'll page through the user's feed until we find the post in question. It feels like this is more the expected use case for the API...
Both the global /v2.2/525575504/posts and app-scoped /v2.2/10152350676805505/posts return nothing, but /v1.0/525575504/posts returns two recent posts, this like and this post. Not sure why only those two, even though has plenty of other recent public posts. The like is fetchable via its id field in both api versions, i.e. /v1.0/525575504_10153045879215505 and /v2.2/10152350676805505_10153045879215505, but both API versions return the Unsupported get request error when fetching the post via its id field, e.g. /v1.0/525575504_351575675029953 and /v2.2/10152350676805505_351575675029953
Trying another public post, this one with pictures: https://www.facebook.com/andigalpern/posts/678121182314631 . /v1.0/100003502653187_678121182314631, /v2.2/100003502653187_678121182314631, and /v2.2/499657186827699_678121182314631 all error.
/v1.0/100003502653187/posts only includes one post, a like, and /v2.2/100003502653187/posts is empty.
For reference, here is the GitHub issue where we have been tracking this problem.
Basically you would need read_stream for this (which your app will not get granted). And yes, even though the post is public, you still need read_stream to be able to get read access to all kinds of posts.
You can easily play around with this in Graph API Explorer. First give your app read_stream permission to get ids of items in your feed – that will give you ids of the “form app-scoped user id underscore post id”. Then remove read_stream (by clicking “Get Access Token” again and using the “Clear” button), and try several of the user_* permissions – and you will see that for most of your posts, even the public ones, you will still only get “Unsupported get request”, which just means you are not allowed to read that object.
F.e., I have a public post where shared a video post from another page on my timeline, the type is video and status_type is shared_story, but neither user_status nor user_videos allow me to read this post – only when I grant read_stream again, my app can read that post. Same with another public post of type status and status_type mobile_status_update – readable with read_stream, not with any of the user_* permissions.
In short: What you want to achieve is not possible any more with API v2 and the restriction that read_stream will only be granted to apps on platforms where no official FB client exists.
A one proposition is to make api calls to write facebook posts since those return valid post_id that you could use
Second,
When you try https://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer/256884317673197/?method=GET&path=525575504%2Fposts&version=v2.0&
You can see that his posts ID's are not starting with his public id as you wrote 525575504_*
but they still put unsupported get request
https://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer/256884317673197/?method=GET&path=10152853212485505_351575675029953&version=v2.0
Third since above doesnt work are those posts public for sure?
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.
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
});
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