fbconsole

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

You can install fbconsole using pip:

pip install fbconsole

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.

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 profile a file-like object as a post parameter:

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

Finally, 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())")

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>'

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.

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