LinkedIn API - how to query for the total number of connections?

Question

I am trying to query for the total number of connections like this:

/people/id=QM86-RIKjb:(connections total)

and using the API example her

Answer 1

To get the connection count from the Profile API, you can ask the API directly:

http://api.linkedin.com/v1/people/id=nbqwYraDfd:(num-connections,num-connections-capped)

Which will return (depending on the connection count):

  500
  true

Keep in mind that there are restrictions on the fields available to the viewing user - check the Profile Fields document for details. For instance, it is not possible to get 'connections of connections' - if, in your example above, nbqwYraDfd represents the current viewing user, you can use:

http://api.linkedin.com/v1/people/id=nbqwYraDfd:(connections)

Which will return:

  
    
    ...
    
  

And then check the value of total by traversing the XML (language dependant).

However, if nbqwYraDfd is a connection of the current user, or a non-connection, you will get a 403 response:

  403
  1337954306491
  25P44ZN249
  0
  Access to other member's connections denied