I need to scrape post id, number of likes, number of comments, and username.
by using php code and I am currently using library Goutte.
How do I get post details? Is it possible using php goutte or do I have to use FB Graph API?
<?php
require 'vendor/autoload.php';//require the vendor/autoload.php file.
$client = new \Goutte\Client();//create a new client.
$crawler = $client->request('GET', 'https://www.facebook.com/username/');//go to site
You are forced to use the Facebook Graph API. Scraping users’ profile pages can give basic information about them, who they’re friends with, and what photos they’ve posted.
Facebook realise the potential harm to user privacy from allowing anyone to scrape profiles. For this reason, most elements of a typical Facebook profile are set to private, meaning that they can’t be viewed by anyone who that user hasn’t added as a friend. If you try to scrape a random person’s Facebook account, you may not be able to pull much information other than their name, their profile picture, and any old posts on their timeline which haven’t been made private. So, I advice you to use the Graph API, take a look to the docs from here. If you have any problem with the Graph API, post another question.
Related
Scenario
I'm building an application that needs the ability to post to users wall (personal profile) on behalf of a user on facebook. I remember before the way that I would do it is request a permission "publish_actions" but reading through their documentation i came to this page:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/changelog/breaking-changes/#login-4-24
which states that that is being deprecated.
They recommended an alternative which is using their sharing product found here but this seems like it would break one of the functionalies of my current application (I dont want to share content i want users to post it to whenever they choose to on whichever account they choose to).
Question
Is there a way to get posting to a users wall and NOT an event, page or group. If i'm correct I can still post data to events, pages and groups via API as normal but to a users wall its different? I need to post on their wall via api but i can't seem to find the permission.
My facebook api graph version for my app is 3.0 and im using their PHP SDK to make the requests.
Research and Reasoning
I haven't worked on a Facebook Application for a while, thus am a little rusty with how the Graph API works.
I have had a look at various topics and pages such as:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/activity/
How to Style Facebook Activity Feed
From what I can gather, getting the activity of a facebook page is pretty simple, however, before I proceed, there are a few things I would like to iron out before to ensure I build the app or write the script in the best possible way...
My Question
I would like to gather the status updates of a Facebook Like page and then feed this data to my News page on the website I am building.
My method would be a simple call to the Graph API to gather the data, and then display it on screen.
My question is, can I do this without creating a Facebook App, and therefore do I even need the PHP SDK?
Is it possible to achieve it like so and are there any request limits:
$url = 'https://graph.facebook.com/LIKE_PAGE_ID/feed';
$result = json_decode(file_get_contents($url));
If the above is the correct answer to this question then please let me know and I will close this question
Update
I have tried the above URL with my like page and it says that I need an Access Token. This is what I feared... Is it possible to get this data without being logged in, and without having set up a Facebook Application?
Why not create a Facebook app and use App Access Token to retrieve the feed for the Public pages.
Though you might get feed of some pages without app access token or response for different end points without access_token, but as the Facebook's API is constantly changing, and would finally settle with authorized request to their end points, I would suggest you to use the App Access Token which is can be created with the format
App_ID|App_Secret
So instead of your call for $url that you had you can change it to
$url = 'https://graph.facebook.com/LIKE_PAGE_ID/feed?access_token=App_ID|App_Secret';
Which you can then json_decode. Also there is nothing on binding to use PHP SDK, and in your case, it is not even required.
I've been sarching for hours on FB graph api docs and google but couldn't find a solution. Let me explain my question. Using the FB graph API, we are able to retrieve user's newsfeeds, but how do we retrieve user's newsfeeds that are posted by FB apps, such as game scores/achievements? I know that it's possible to retrieve user's newsfeeds created by a specific app by adding filter=app_[app_id], but is there a way to filter newsfeeds that are created by any apps?
Currently what I do is that, if a newsfeed contains a link that links to app.facebook.com, I assume it's posted by an FB app. I'm not sure if this assumption is safe and is there a better way to achieve my goal?
P.S. I use php SDK so a php solution is highly appreciated. Solutions using other SDK are also appreciated. I'll try to make a conversion by myself.
Thanks in advance,
Kaze
Currently what I do is that, if a newsfeed contains a link that links to app.facebook.com, I assume it's posted by an FB app.
Posts in /me/feed that have been made by/using an app should have a property "application" set, which contains the app name, namespace and id – so by just looking for that you should be able to determine if it was posted by an app or manually.
I need to grab the statuses from a Facebook page via PHP to display on the page. I don't want to have people logging in to facebook just for my script to grab the statuses from the page since it is a public page and isn't restricted. I have the Facebook API for PHP in my projects directory but have no idea how to use it to do what I want it to. Could someone give me a code example of how I'd do this? Thanks!
It's really a straight forward task if you follow the documentation. Since /PAGE_ID/feed requires any valid access_token, your app access_token is enough to get the data:
Open the Graph API Explorer (I'm querying coca-cola/feed)
Get an app access_token from the Access Token Tool and use it instead of yours
You're done!
Last December, I set up an app for a client who wanted to pull their public facebook posts into the footer of their website.
I was using this URL to pull the message, create time and permalink and when I wrote it, all was good:
http://api.facebook.com/method/fql.query?query=SELECT%20message,%20created_time,%20permalink%20FROM%20stream%20WHERE%20source_id=138631878804%20AND%20message%3C%3E%27%27%20limit%203
Today they reported that it was no longer pulling their information. I put that url into a browser and the result is "Requires valid signature"
I've gathered from google that I need something called an access_token, also I've seen where I can use the php sdk but then I need an appId and a secret token.
At this point, I've read so many different sources that I am thoroughly confused. The FQL query above represents the full extent of my Facebook programming experience. It looks like maybe I want the Graph API, but I don't want anyone to have to sign into anything.
Can one of you guys who are more versed in the voodoo of facebook nudge me in the right direction to do this:
From PHP, pull public messages from the stream table without forcing a user to log into facebook.
Thanks!!
To pull posts from a publicly visible Page on Facebook, you can use any valid access token. For most sites managing a page, this will be a page access token retrieved via one of the page's admins authorising your app to have access to their pages, but that might be overkill for your use-case.
Probably the quickest solution is to just create a new App ID for the site, get the app access token for that App (see 'App Login' on https://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/ ) and then use that access token to retrieve the posts.
I found several links all from a simple Google search.
Duplicate question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3298836/how-you-get-access-tokens-for-facebook
http://benbiddington.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/facebook-graph-api-getting-access-tokens/
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/