fbconsole

fbconsole is a small facebook api client for use in python scripts.

You can install fbconsole using pip:

pip install fbconsole

Or if you don't want to install anything first, just include these lines at the top of your script:

from urllib import urlretrieve
import imp
urlretrieve('https://raw.github.com/facebook/fbconsole/master/src/fbconsole.py',
            '.fbconsole.py')
fbconsole = imp.load_source('fb', '.fbconsole.py')

Please take note of the security risks with running code downloaded from the internet like this.

Quick Start Guide

Authentication

For many api calls, you will need to authenticate your script with Facebook. fbconsole makes this easy by providing an authenticate function. If your script needs extended permissions, for example to post a status update, you can specify which extended permissions to request with the AUTH_SCOPE setting. For example:

import fbconsole

fbconsole.AUTH_SCOPE = ['publish_stream', 'publish_checkins']
fbconsole.authenticate()

You can find a list of permissions in Facebook's api documentation here.

During the authentication process, a browser window will be opened where you can enter in your facebook login credentials. After logging in, you can close the browser window. Your script will continue executing in the background.

The access token used for authentication will be stored in a file, so the next time your script is run, the authenticate() function won't have to do anything. To remove this access token, you can call logout():

fbconsole.logout()

See below for other modes of authentication.

Graph API Basics

You can make HTTP POST requests using the post function. Here is how you would update your status:

status = fbconsole.post('/me/feed', {'message':'Hello from my awesome script'})

You can make HTTP GET requests using the get function. Here is how you would fetch likes on a status update:

likes = fbconsole.get('/'+status['id']+'/likes')

You can make HTTP DELETE requests using the delete function. Here is how you would delete a status message:

fbconsole.delete('/'+status['id'])

To upload a photo, you can provide a file-like object as a post parameter:

fbconsole.post('/me/photos', {'source':open('my-photo.jpg')})

You can also make FQL queries using the fql function. For example:

friends = fbconsole.fql("SELECT name FROM user WHERE uid IN "
                        "(SELECT uid2 FROM friend WHERE uid1 = me())")

If you just want a url to a particular graph api, for example to download a profile picture, you can use the graph_url function:

profile_pic = graph_url('/zuck/picture')
urlretrieve(profile_pic, 'zuck.jpg')

Advanced Graph API

fbconsole also provides access and utilities around some more advanced graph api features.

iter_pages

If you are trying to fetch a lot of data, you may be required to make multiple requests to the graph api via the "paging" values that are sent back. You can use iter_pages to automatically iterate through multiple requests. For example, you can iterate through all your wall posts:

for post in iter_pages(fbconsole.get('/me/posts')):
    print post['message']

More Authentication Options

By default, fbconsole will make all it's requests as the fbconsole facebook app. If you want the requests to be made by your own facebook application, you must modify the APP_ID setting. For example:

fbconsole.APP_ID = '<your-app-id>'
fbconsole.authenticate()

For the authentication flow to work, you must configure your Facebook application correctly by setting the "Site URL" option to http://127.0.0.1:8080

If you don't want to change your application settings, you can also specify an access token to use directly, in which case you can skip authentication altogether:

fbconsole.ACCESS_TOKEN = '<your-access-token>'

As a means to set the ACCESS_TOKEN, fbconsole provides an automatic mechanism (python 2.x only) for authenticating server-side apps by completing the OAuth process automatically:

# WARNING: only supported for python 2.x
fbconsole.automatically_authenticate(
    username,     # facebook username for authentication
    password,     # facebook password for authentication
    app_secret,   # "app secret" from facebook app settings
    redirect_uri, # redirect uri specified in facebook app settings
)

This method for authentication is particularly helpful, for example, for running cron jobs that grab data from the Graph API on a daily basis. If you have any trouble using the automatic_authentication method, be sure to double check that the username, password, app secret, and redirect uri are all consistent with your apps facebook settings.

Other Options

There are two other options you can specify.

• SERVER_PORT controls which port the local server runs on. If you modify this, make sure your applications settings on Facebook, specifically "Site URL", reflect the port number you are using. The default is 8080.

• ACCESS_TOKEN_FILE controls where the access token gets stored on the file system. The default is .fb_access_token.

• AUTH_SUCCESS_HTML is the html page content displayed to the user in their browser window once they have successfully authenticated.

Feedback

For issues pertaining to fbconsole only, use the issue tracker on github. For issues with the graph api or other aspects of Facebook's platform, please refer to the developer docs and the Facebook Platform bug tracker.

License Information

fbconsole is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0