Facebook GraphAPI via another webpage php? - php

Question

First: please forgive me - Im a bit of a novice as some of this...
I have a working test site which is running the php facebook SDK to perform some simple graphAPI requests successfully. Namely read a group's feed, which the user is a member of, and process this and display it back on a webpage.
This all works fine, the problem I have encountered is when trying to perform the same request via a php curl POST to another webpage (on the same domain). It seems that the SDK does not carry the expected session to another page when a post request is formed (see "AUTH ERROR2" in code)...this works fine when the following file is included via a "require_once" but not when a curl is made.
I would much rather do a "curl" as Im finding when a "require_once" is done from a page in a different directory level, Im getting php errors of the page not being found - which is expected.
I may just be tackling this problem all wrong...there may be a simpler way to make sure when files are includes, their correct directly level remains intact, or there may be a way to send over the currently authorised facebook sdk session via a curl post. All of which I have tried to no avail, and I would really appreciate any help or advise on this.
Thank you for your time.
//readGroupPosts.inc.php
function readGroupPosts($postVars)
{
//$access_token = $postVars[0];
// ^-- I'm presuming I need this? I have been experimenting appending it to
// the graphAPI request to no success...
$groupID = $postVars[1];
$limit = $postVars[2];
require_once("authFb.inc.php"); //link to the facebookSDK & other stuff
if ($user) {
try {
$groupFeed = $facebook->api("/$groupID/feed?limit=$limit"); //limit=0 returns all;
$groupFeed = $groupFeed['data']; //removes first tier of array for simpler access
$postArray;
for($i=0; $i<count($groupFeed); $i++)
{
$postArray[$i] = array($groupFeed[$i]['from']['name'], $groupFeed[$i]['message'], $groupFeed[$i]['updated_time'], count($groupFeed[$i]['likes']['data']));
}
return $postArray;
} catch (FacebookApiException $e) {
error_log($e);
$user = null;
return "AUTH ERROR1"; //for testing..
}
}
else
{
return "AUTH ERROR2"; //no user is authenticated i.e. $user == null..
}
}

Answer 1

I would much rather do a "curl" as Im finding when a "require_once" is done from a page in a different directory level, Im getting php errors of the page not being found - which is expected.
I may just be tackling this problem all wrong...
Definitively.
Using cURL as a “workaround” just because you’re not able to find your way around your server’s file system is an outrageous idea. Don’t do it. Stop even thinking about it. Now.
there may be a simpler way to make sure when files are includes, their correct directly level remains intact
Yes – for example, to use absolute paths instead of relative ones. Prefixing the path with the value of $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] for example – that way, once you’ve given the path correctly in respect to this “base path”, it does not matter where you’re requiring the file from, because an absolute path is the same no matter from where you look at it.
(And since this is not a Facebook-related problem at all, but just concerns basics of PHP and server-side programming, I’ll edit the tags.)