Archive of entries posted on September 2009

Update on How to implement Facebook Connect on a PHP website

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A few weeks ago, I blogged about my first tests with Facebook Connect. Since then, Facebook has made it a bit easier by introducing the Facebook Query Language, or FQL.

FQL allows you to use a SQL-style interface to more easily query the Facebook social data. As an example, you can use statements like

SELECT name, pic FROM user WHERE uid=211031 OR uid=4801660

to get the name and picture of specific users.

Details about FQL can be found on the Facebook Developers website. To implement it in PHP, you use the following code:

$fbid = $facebook->user;
echo $fbid;
if ( $fbid )
  {
  $query = sprintf("SELECT name, pic_square_with_logo FROM user WHERE uid = %s",$fbid);
  $user_details = $facebook->api_client->fql_query($query);
  }

...

<? if ( $user_details[0]["pic_square_with_logo"] != ''
  { ?>
  <img src="<?=$user_details[0]["pic_square_with_logo"]?>" />
  <? } ?>

You can test FQL queries with the Facebook API test tool.