Facebook API | Set-3

Namachila 9 hours ago

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Prerequisite: Facebook API | Set-1, Set-2

In this article we will be discussing three methods:

search
get_connections
get_allconnections

`search` method:

The valid value types are place and placetopic.

Parameters:
id: It is a string containing a valid value.
args: This is optional and they need to passed a query params.

Example: Get details of all places that are near Connaught Place Delhi. The Latitude and Longitude of Connaught Place are – 28.6304, 77.2177

import json 
import facebook 
  
def main(): 
    token = "Please replace with your access token"
    graph = facebook.GraphAPI(token) 
  
    places = graph.search(type ='place', center ='28.6304, 77.2177',  
                                            fields ='name, location') 
  
    for place in places['data']: 
        print('%s %s' %(place['name'].encode(), place['location'].get('zip'))) 
      
if __name__ == '__main__': 
    main() 

Please refer to the link Search Reference for complete list of fields that can used.

`get_connections` method :

This methods aims at returning all connections or we can say Edges for the mentioned object as dict.

Parameters:
id:A string specifying the unique id for the resource under question.
connection name: A string specifying the connection or edges between the objects.

If connection name parameter is left empty then get_connections method will simply return the basic information of the authenticated user.

Example #1: We want to find out the total count of the number of Friends of the active user.

import json 
import facebook 
  
def main(): 
    token = "Please replace this with your access token"
    graph = facebook.GraphAPI(token) 
    friends = graph.get_connections(id ='me', connection_name ='friends') 
    print(json.dumps(friends, indent = 4)) 
  
if __name__ == '__main__': 
    main() 

Example #2: We want to get list of all posts from a page. For this, we will be using get_connections and later on, we will demonstrate how to use get_all_connections method.

import json 
import facebook 
  
def main(): 
    token = "Please replace this with your PAGE Access Token"
    graph = facebook.GraphAPI(token) 
    posts_25 = graph.get_connections(id ='PAGE_ID', connection_name ='posts', 
                                                  fields ='id, created_time') 
  
    print(json.dumps(posts_25, indent = 4)) 
  
if __name__ == '__main__': 
    main()  

Note: This example by default print latest 25 posts. You can add a filter for the post using limit(…) to set the limit for the number of the posts.

Example #3: In this example we will use get_connections method to print all the comments for the posts in reverse_chronological order, show sub comments including hidden comments and also show the total count of the comments.

import json 
import facebook 
  
def main(): 
    token = "Please replace this with your PAGE Access Token"
    graph = facebook.GraphAPI(token) 
    posts_25 = graph.get_connections(id ='POST_ID', connection_name ='comments',  
                                     include_hidden = True, order ='reverse_chronological', 
                                     filter ='stream', summary ='total_count') 
  
    print(json.dumps(posts_25, indent = 4)) 
  
if __name__ == '__main__': 
    main()  

`get_all_connections` method :

Iterates over all pages returned by a get_connections call and yields the individual items.

Parameters:
id:A string specifying the unique id for the resource under question.
connection name: A string specifying the connection or edges between the objects.

Example #1: In this example I have used get_all_connections to list all the posts from a Page listed using the since datetime parameter.

import json 
import facebook 
from datetime import datetime 
   
def main(): 
    token = "Please replace this with your PAGE Access Token"
    graph = facebook.GraphAPI(token) 
    posts_all = graph.get_all_connections(id ='PAGE_ID', connection_name ='posts', 
                                           fields ='created_time, id', 
                                           since = datetime(2017, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0)) 
  
    for ind, post in enumerate(posts_all): 
     print(json.dumps(ind, indent = 4)) 
     print(json.dumps(post, indent = 4)) 
      
   
if __name__ == '__main__': 
    main() 