mithra62

Using the FriendFeed API with PHP

Published: 03/18/2009

Programming, Code

Dissenting opinion: I don’t like social networking as a consumer. I just find the whole thing pretty stupid; meeting people online that I’ll never meet in real life, who I have only a vague similarity to, makes me feel retarded. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter can all go to hell. Sorry, had to be said. (I’ll probably be writing a post on this soon.)

I do love building them though. They’re a joy to work on because of the complexities involved and right now it’s prettty exciting because of all the new stuff coming out daily.

Anyway, for an upcoming project I needed to integrate the FriendFeed API into a website. This was painful because, as I said above, I hate social networking sites. I didn’t belong to too any at the time so I had to spend about an hour signing up with a few of the social networks FriendFeed supports.

After that though, working with the API was pretty painless. To get started all you have to do is

Try not to look too closely to the API code; there’s almost zero formatting. Just know it works. If you have php compiled with curl support that is; you HAVE to have curl support.

API Calls

Pull a user feed:

<?php
$friendfeed = new FriendFeed($friendfeed_nickname, $friendfeed_key);
$feed = $friendfeed->fetch_user_feed("$nickname", $service=null, $start=0,$num=30);
?>

Pull a user comment feed:

<?php
$friendfeed = new FriendFeed($friendfeed_nickname, $friendfeed_key);
$feed = $friendfeed->fetch_user_comments_feed($nickname, $service=null, $start=0,$num=30);
?>

Pull a user likes feed:

<?php
$friendfeed = new FriendFeed($friendfeed_nickname, $friendfeed_key);
$feed = $friendfeed->fetch_user_likes_feed($nickname, $service=null, $start=0,$num=30);
?>

Pull a user discussion feed:

<?php
$friendfeed = new FriendFeed($friendfeed_nickname, $friendfeed_key);
$feed = $friendfeed->fetch_user_discussion_feed($nickname, $service=null, $start=0,$num=30);
?>

Pull a merged feed with all of the given users’ entries. Note that authentication is required if any one of the users’ feeds isn’t public and that $nicknames is an array of users:

<?php
$feed = $friendfeed->fetch_multi_user_feed($nicknames, $service=null, $start=0,$num=30);
?>

Pull the entries the authenticated user sees on their home page:

<?php
$friendfeed = new FriendFeed($friendfeed_nickname, $friendfeed_key);
$feed = $friendfeed->fetch_home_feed($service=null, $start=0, $num=30);
?>

Perform a search. The format for $query is the same as the FriendFeed search. If you authenticate the request the search applies to the authenticated user. If it’s not authenticated the search is against all public feeds.

<?php
$friendfeed = new FriendFeed($friendfeed_nickname, $friendfeed_key);
$feed = $friendfeed->search($query, $service=null, $start=0, $num=30);
?>

Publishes the provided link/title to the authenticated users page:

<?php
// image_urls is a list of URLs that will be downloaded and included as
// thumbnails beneath the link. The thumbnails will all link to the
// destination link. If you would prefer that the images link somewhere
// else, you can specify images instead, which should be an array of
// name-associated arrays of the form array("url"=>...,"link"=>...).
// The thumbnail with the given url will link to the specified link.
//
// audio_urls is a list of MP3 URLs that will show up as a play
// button beneath the link. You can optionally supply audio[]
// instead, which should be a list of name-associated arrays of the
// form ("url"=> ..., "title"=> ...). The given title will appear when
// the audio file is played.
//
// We return the parsed/published entry as returned from the server,
// which includes the final thumbnail URLs as well as the ID for the
$friendfeed = new FriendFeed($friendfeed_nickname, $friendfeed_key);
$feed = $friendfeed->publish_link($title, $link, $comment=null, $image_urls=null,$images=null, $via=null, $audio_urls=null, $audio=null, $room=null);
?>

Add a comment to a users page; returns the comment_id

<?php
$friendfeed = new FriendFeed($friendfeed_nickname, $friendfeed_key);
$feed = $friendfeed->add_comment($entry_id, $body);
?>

Edit a comment on a users page:

<?php
$friendfeed = new FriendFeed($friendfeed_nickname, $friendfeed_key);
$feed = $friendfeed->edit_comment($entry_id, $comment_id, $body);
?>

Delete a comment:

<?php
$friendfeed = new FriendFeed($friendfeed_nickname, $friendfeed_key);
$feed = $friendfeed->delete_comment($entry_id, $comment_id);
?>

Un-deletes a comment:

<?php
$friendfeed = new FriendFeed($friendfeed_nickname, $friendfeed_key);
$feed = $friendfeed->undelete_comment($entry_id, $comment_id);
?>

Add like for a given $entry_id:

<?php
$friendfeed = new FriendFeed($friendfeed_nickname, $friendfeed_key);
$feed = $friendfeed->add_like($entry_id);
?>

Deletes a like for a give $entry_id:

<?php
$friendfeed = new FriendFeed($friendfeed_nickname, $friendfeed_key);
$feed = $friendfeed->delete_like($entry_id);
?>

Using the FriendFeed API with PHP

Published: 03/18/2009

Programming, Code

API Calls

Further Reading