dparoulek/facebookdp

Authenticate against Facebook and access the Graph API from ruby

Overview

This gem allows you to authenticate against facebook and then make Graph API calls from ruby

Authenticating a user against Facebook to obtain an access_token

The goal here is to delegate authentication to Facebook and retrieve a secret OAuth2 access_token. In other words, you want your web application to be able to send a user to facebook, and have facebook figure out whether or not they are who they say they are.

Facebook uses OAuth2 to authenticate users on thirdparty application's behalf. This gem handles the Oauth2 "handshake" with facebook. Basically, here are the steps:

1. Register you application with Facebook and get your API Key and API Secret

2. Create Facebook::OAuth object like so:

   @oauth2 ||= Facebookdp::OAuth.new(your-api-key, you-api-secret, 'https://graph.facebook.com', facebook-callback-url)

The facebook-callback-url argument should be something like http://yourwebapp/facebook-controller/handle-facebook-response. If you don't specifiy a facebook-callback-url, it will default to http://localhost:3000/facebook. So you might want to just stick a controller there when doing development for easy testing.

3. Next, call @oauth2.authorize_url. This should give you a url like this: https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/authorize?client_id=YOUR_APP_ID&type=web_server&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%3A3000%2Ffacebook%2Fcallback

4. Now it's time to trade the client_id for a Access Token (note the http param named client_id in the authorize_url). Your web app should redirect the user's browser to the authorize_url. Facebook then prompts for a username and password. The user enters a username and password.

Tip: During development, sometimes it helps to simply copy and paste the authorize_url into your browser.

5a) If the user enters invalid credentials, they'll be redirected back to the facebook-callback-url specified above. The request will include a http param named error_reason so your application can handle the invalid username and password error appropriately.

5b) If this is the first time the user has ever logged into your application, they'll be prompted by Facebook whether to allow or deny your web application. After they choose to allow or deny, they'll be redirected to the facebook-callback-url specified above.

6. Assuming the user entered correct credentials and approved your web application, then they'll be redirected back to the facebook-callback-url you specified above. For example, something like this

http://yourwebapp/facebook-controller/handle-facebook-response?code=dd8490a3a1c82de377f45bc3-1388092492|\_6MST-8QGIQhiKP3ZkdEMou44Uo

Your web appilcation should parse that access code and hang onto it!

7. Next, you trade the access code for an access_token like so:

   @oauth2_token = @oath2.get_access_token @oauth2_token ||= @oauth2.get_access_token(the-access-code-you-parsed-and-saved)

Using this Facebook Gem to make Graph API calls

First, you have to do the whole OAuth2 song and dance as described above. Once you do that, you should have a OAuth2 access_token for the user. You can then use the token to create an instance of the Facebookdp::Base class.

@client = Facebookdp::Base.new(@oauth2_token)

Then, simply use the @client instance to make Facebook Graph API calls on the user's behalf. For example, you can get all the users friends:

friends = @client.friends