Graph API
The Graph API is the primary way to get data into and out of the Facebook platform. It's an HTTP-based API that apps can use to programmatically query data, post new stories, manage ads, upload photos, and perform a wide variety of other tasks.
The Basics
The Graph API is named after the idea of a 'social graph' - a representation of the information on Facebook composed of:
- nodes - basically "things" such as a User, a Photo, a Page, a Comment
- edges - the connections between those "things", such as a Page's Photos, or a Photo's Comments
- fields - info about those "things", such as a person's birthday, or the name of a Page
Typically you use nodes to get data about a specific object, use edges to get collections of objects on a single object, and use fields to get data about a single object or each object in a collection.
The Graph API is HTTP-based, so it works with any language that has an HTTP library, such as cURL and urllib. We'll explain a bit more about what you can do with this in the section below, but it means you can also use the Graph API directly in your browser, for example a Graph API request is equivalent to:
GET graph.facebook.com
/facebook/picture?
redirect=false
Most Graph API requests require the use of access tokens, which your app can generate by implementing Facebook Login.
The implementation in this extension will help you construct these graph queries, however it will still involve knowledge of the API.
Load the Graph API Explorer
The easiest way to understand the Graph API is to use it with the Graph API Explorer, a low-level tool you can use to query, add and remove data. It's a very handy resource to have at your fingertips while you integrate with Facebook.
So your next step is to go to the Graph API Explorer.