Facebook application Step 1: Retrieving user information

As a first step in our Facebook application, we’ll be retrieving some basic information about a logged in user who is visiting our application.

fbuser = User.objects.get_current()

# Get some specifics about the user

user_details = request.facebook.users.getInfo([fbuser.id], ['first_name, current_location']);

name = user_details[0]['first_name']

current_location = user_details[0]['current_location']

This is pretty straightforward. First we get a user object for the logged in Facebook user using the User.objects.get_current() method.

Then we’ll use the user’s ID to gather some basic information about the user, i.e. first_name and current_location. It’s important to note that the user information that can be retrieved depends whether you’re passing a session variable.

While the method doesn’t require a session key, without one you’re limited to the following:

• uid
• first_name
• last_name
• name
• locale
• affiliations (regional type only)
• pic_square
• profile_url

The same restrictions are in place if the user has not yet installed our application.

If you have a session key and the user has installed our application, the sky’s the limit. See the Users.getInfo documentation for a complete list of what’s available.

As always, I welcome comments and constructive criticism. I am by no means an expert at this so I can already anticipate there are better ways to accomplish the things I’m trying to do.

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