Simple Facebook API documentation

Андрей Никишаев — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:46:17 +0000

1 Installation

Go to the Facebook developer’s page http://www.facebook.com/developers/createapp.php and create new application. And get api_key and secret_key of your application.
Fill fields Connect URL, Post-Authorize Redirect URL and Post-Authorize URL with url to your site which will callback after user registration and which will get GET data from Facebook with user session_key, secret_key, sig and user_id which will be used for user authentication in future.

2 Understanding of Facebook API methods

Download Facebook API library for PHP from http://svn.facebook.com/svnroot/platform/clients/packages/facebook-platform.tar.gz

Here is example of how code is work:

include_once(“facebook/facebook.php");   //path to the facebook library
$facebook = new Facebook($api_key, secret_key);  //api and secret key of your application which you get in chapter 1.1
		$facebook->set_user($session_key, $secret_key, $sig)  //session_key, secret_key and sig of user which you get after user registered your Facebook application  in chapter 1.2
		do {
			switch($data['type']) {
				case "post_photos":
					foreach($data['file'] as $file) {
						$res = $facebook->api_client->photos_upload($file['tmp_name'],null,$data['title'],$conf['userid']);
					}
					break;
				case "post_status":
					$res = $facebook->api_client->users_setStatus($data['message'],$conf['userid']);
					break;
				case "post_blog":
					$res = $facebook->api_client->notes_create($data['title'],$data['message'],$conf['userid']);
					break;
				case "post_microblog":
					$res = $facebook->api_client->stream_publish($data['message'],$data['attachment'],$data['links'],$conf['userid'],$conf['userid']);
					break;
				default:
					break;
			}
                                     } while(!$res);

There is 4 types of posting on facebook, each of them has specific function

Posting photos:

$facebook->api_client->photos_upload($file['tmp_name'],null,$title,$user_id);

$file['tmp_name'] – path to the image on server filesystem
$title – title of photo
$user_id – user on whose wall photo will be posted. By default it’s must be user_id of user who post a photo(to post on his wall)

Posting status:

$facebook->api_client->users_setStatus($message,$user_id);

$message – status message
$user_id – user on whose wall photo will be posted. By default it’s must be user_id of user who post a photo(to post on his wall)

Posting blog:

$facebook->api_client->notes_create($title,$’message,$user_id);

$title – title of post
$message – post message
$user_id – user on whose wall photo will be posted. By default it’s must be user_id of user who post a photo(to post on his wall)

Posting stream:

$facebook->api_client->stream_publish($message,$attachment,$links,$user_id_target,$userid_actor);

$message – post message
$user_id_target – id of user on whose wall posting
$userid_actor – id of user who posting

Attachments and link example:

$attachment =  array(
      'name' =&gt; 'ninja cat',
      'href' =&gt; 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muLIPWjks_M',
      'caption' =&gt; '{*actor*} uploaded a video to www.youtube.com',
      'description' =&gt; 'a sneaky cat',
      'properties' =&gt; array('category' =&gt; array(
                              'text' =&gt; 'pets',
                              'href' =&gt; 'http://www.youtube.com/browse?s=mp&t=t&c=15'),
                            'ratings' =&gt; '5 stars'),
      'media' =&gt; array(array('type' =&gt; 'video',
                    'video_src' =&gt; 'http://www.youtube.com/v/fzzjgBAaWZw&hl=en&fs=1',
                    'preview_img' =&gt; 'http://img.youtube.com/vi/muLIPWjks_M/default.jpg?h=100&w=200&sigh=__wsYqEz4uZUOvBIb8g-wljxpfc3Q=',
                    'video_link' =&gt; 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muLIPWjks_M',
                    'video_title' =&gt; 'ninja cat')));
$links = array(
                      array('text' =&gt; 'Upload a video',
                            'href' =&gt; 'http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_upload'));

And one more thing. There can be trouble with connection to the Facebook API server so in example was used a loop which can repeat calling Facebook API until get an unswer from it.

Hope this helps.

Creotiv lives here » example

Simple Facebook API documentation

2 Understanding of Facebook API methods