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Implementation of Facebook Graph API in Coldfusion

Facebook has launched a new FB API called Graph that simplifies FB applications development, the new Graph API allows website owners to create Single Sign On (SSO) with Facebook and allow websites owners to be able to import a lot of users information but after their permissions.


The code below written in Coldfusion gives an example on how to Create FB login/logout button and then how to retrieve the created cookie, and use it for further development:
 
  <body>
  <cfoutput>
    <!--- Your FB application IDS --->
    <cfset api_key = "XXXXXXXXXXXXX"/>
    <cfset secret_key = "XXXXXXXXXXXXXX"/>
    <cfset appID = "XXXXXXXXXXXXXX"/>
    <!--- Facebook login/logout button --->
    <p><fb:login-button perms="email,user_birthday" autologoutlink="true"></fb:login-button></p>
    <!--- Facebook login/logout button that publishes to your wall--->
    <p><fb:like></fb:like></p>
    <!--- Facebook script that connects your site to facebook and creates the needed cookies after authentication --->
    <div id="fb-root"></div>
    <script>
      window.fbAsyncInit = function() {
        FB.init({appId: '#appID#', status: true, cookie: true,
                 xfbml: true});
      };
      (function() {
        var e = document.createElement('script');
        e.type = 'text/javascript';
        e.src = document.location.protocol +
          '//connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js';
        e.async = true;
        document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e);
      }());
    </script>
    <!--- End Facebook script that connects your site to facebook and creates the needed cookies after authentication. Now a cookie is created with a name that starts with fbs_ApplicationID --->

    <!--- Function that extracts User ID and access token from FB cookie. Both access_token and user id are needed to extract information related to the user from FaceBook Graph API --->
    <cffunction name="get_facebook_cookie" access="public" output="true" returntype="any">
        <cfargument name="app_id" type="string" required="true">
        <cfargument name="application_secret" type="string" required="true">
        <cfargument name="charToFind" type="string" required="true">
        <cfargument name="chatToRemoveFront" type="string" required="true">
        <cfargument name="chatToRemoveEnd" type="string" required="true">
        <cfset args=arrayNew(1)>
        <cftry>
        <cfset x=StructFind(cookie, trim('fbs_'&'#app_id#'))>
        <cfset args=listtoarray(x,'&')>
        <cfloop from="1" to="#arrayLen(args)#" index="i">
            <cfif FindNoCase("#charToFind#",args[i])>
                <cfset rvalue=#right(args[i],(len(""&args[i])-chatToRemoveFront))#>
                <cfset rvalue=#left(rvalue,(len(""&rvalue)-chatToRemoveEnd))#>
                <cfreturn rvalue />
            </cfif>
        </cfloop>
        <cfcatch type="any">
        <cfreturn 0 />
        </cfcatch>
        </cftry>
    </cffunction>

    <cfset uid=get_facebook_cookie(appID,secret_key,"uid=",4,1)>
    <cfset access_token=get_facebook_cookie(appID,secret_key,"access_token=",14,0)>
    <!--- Get FB User Profile. Profile Information allowed by the user are stored in a struct after deserialized from JSON --->
    <cfhttp url="https://graph.facebook.com/me?access_token=#access_token#&id=#uid#" result="profile"/>
    <cfif IsJSON(profile.filecontent)>
        <cfset prof=DeserializeJSON(profile.filecontent)>
        <cfdump var="#prof#">
    </cfif>
    <!--- Get FB User Friends. Friends Information allowed by the user are stored in a struct after deserialized from JSON--->
    <cfhttp url="https://graph.facebook.com/me/friends?access_token=#access_token#&id=#uid#" result="friends"/>
    <cfif IsJSON(friends.filecontent)>
        <cfset friendsl=DeserializeJSON(friends.filecontent)>
        <cfdump var="#friendsl#">
    </cfif>

</cfoutput>
  </body>
Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous19 July 2010 at 13:15

    Thanks this is great, however I am getting the following error:

    Error validating application.
    OAuthException

    Any suggestions?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great Dental Websites19 July 2010 at 15:02

    What's weird is that if I use this code to generate the token, and then manually lookup this url in my browser, it works...but ONLY if i have TWO (2) question marks in there,.. strange!!!

    https://graph.facebook.com/<>??access_token=<>

    ^This works in the browser but WONT work via cfhttp!!

    How is that possible?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great Dental Websites19 July 2010 at 15:20

    aha, i was able to get it working by changing a few settings:





    the numbers you were using to measure the strings were off by 1 on each variable!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Admin19 July 2010 at 22:15

    For the Anonymous, this error means that the cookie does not exist on your webserver anymore, you have to refresh the page to recreate the cookie. To sort out this create an exception handling and in the catch refresh the page.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Admin19 July 2010 at 22:16

    Great Dental, what is the browser your using?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great Dental Websites19 July 2010 at 22:58

    I got it to work and created an open source project based on your work: http://facebookgraph.riaforge.org/

    ReplyDelete
  7. Admin19 July 2010 at 23:12

    Yes I noticed that. Thank you Great Job. Actually I tested my code on firefox and explorer and it is working, i needs minor enhancement to check if the cookie exists, also I will add some lines for publishing on wall. Let us try to collaborate on this. Have u tested the code on chrome?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great Dental Websites20 July 2010 at 10:22

    Sounds good, send me your email via this conect form:

    http://www.greatdentalwebsites.com/Contact-Us

    We can then discuss further collaboration on development.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Great Dental Websites20 July 2010 at 13:36

    FYI Chrome works, IE does not work.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Admin20 July 2010 at 14:01

    With me both worked, what version of explorer you used?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Unknown22 August 2010 at 14:54

    struct error:

    message Error processing access token.
    type OAuthException

    i can see buttons login and like, but after that show the error

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unknown23 March 2019 at 03:27

      the same error : Invalid token
      Did you solve the problem?

      Delete
  12. Admin23 August 2010 at 20:26

    Create exception handling cftry to catch the exception when the user is not authenticated, if you want me to do it for you let me know.

    ReplyDelete
  13. sgrundy5 January 2011 at 15:40

    This is a great help, thanks for posting it. It did not work for me as well but all I had to do was remove the "me" part of the first CFHTTP url and the "me/" part of the second CFHTTP url.

    Do you know did the API change or is there some functionality of the "me" part of the URL that I am missing?

    Thanks again for posting.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Admin5 January 2011 at 22:29

    I have tested the code before I published it, "me" directs graph API to publish to your wall. Anyway there is a newer post that has a full example on how to publish to your wall and to your friends walls as well. Thank you for your feedback.

    ReplyDelete
  15. omar10 June 2011 at 10:27

    I'm getting:

    Security: The requested template has been denied access to createobject(java)

    Seems to happen upon outputting the results of the cfhttp request

    I get the access token and id with no problem but when its sent over using cfhttp it seems not to authenticate.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Admin10 June 2011 at 11:24

    Omar,

    Please try to use the example in the below URL it is newer and 100% working:

    http://blog.abusalah.info/2010/08/coldfusion-facebook-graph-api-publish.html

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous28 July 2011 at 23:59

    Jesus MORE old FB code that doesn't work. I'm wondering exactly what the problem is. Does Facebook just make changes so fast that nobody can keep up? Is the API so delicate that code working on one server needs major mystery tweaking so that it will work on a second? Where did the FB "API Key" go? Can't find it on Facebook Developer page although there is a hint that it's the same thing as the APP ID except it never works either.

    Hasn't ANYONE got a nice stable implementation of the Facebook API in Coldfusion?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Admin29 July 2011 at 21:59

    Please identify what your problem is? did you try to implement the code and it did not work? as I can see you were not able to find the API keys, if this is the case, please search FB to find the keys. If the code is not working please send me the error your getting.

    I'm sharing my code for free and it was tested and worked on different browsers.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Teo Graca27 September 2011 at 05:49

    first and second cfhttp calls should be https://graph.facebook.com/#uid# AND https://graph.facebook.com/#uid#/friends?access_token=#access_token# respectively

    ReplyDelete
  20. BK18 November 2011 at 05:00

    this is very good and running nice.

    ReplyDelete

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