Facebook Graph API - get a photos album ID

Question

I\'m writing an application that uploads a photo to facebook. I\'m not supplying an album ID so an album is created on behalf of my app.

My question is: how do I get

Answer 1

Jimmy Sawczuk's answer is close, but doesn't work because FQL Photo table columns aid and pid are Rest/FQL API ids, not Graph API ids.

Fortunately the object_id and album_object_id columns in this table are indexable (contrary to the documentation) so this should give you both Rest/FQL & Graph ids for the album:

select aid, album_object_id from photo where object_id = ${GRAPH_PHOTO_ID}

In general object_id fields in Rest/FQL API responses are Graph API id (except for photo notifications, where it's the Rest/FQL id).

Re HonkyHonk's answer: not all photo link urls have a set parameter; in this case I think you can find the Rest/FQL API photo id from its other parameters, and then use Rest/FQL API to get the album id:

• For users with 32-bit user-ids: calculate (id << 32) | pid
  • eg for http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=7518353&id=549683637 this gives 2360873244068853905
• Otherwise concatenate id, _ and pid
  • eg for http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=155052&id=100002937903251 this gives 100002937903251_155052

It would help a lot if Facebook could document something about the two types of ids. Also the Graph API Photo schema should include the album's Graph API id.

Answer 2

function get_album_id_by_album_name($album_name){//return array of data
    $fql = 'SELECT aid, owner, name, object_id FROM album WHERE owner=me() and name="'.$album_name.'"';
    $param = array(
        'method'    => 'fql.query',
        'query'     => $fql,
        'callback'  => ''
    );
    $fqlResult = $this->facebook->api($param);
    return $fqlResult;
}

Answer 3

Richard Barnett's solution works well for me, I use this as an FQL query through the Graph API to get a JSON response like I would for any other Graph API query:

https://graph.facebook.com/fql?q=select+album_object_id+FROM+photo+WHERE+object_id='[PHOTOID]'

This returns:

{
   "data": [
      {
         "album_object_id": "10150531092908837"
      }
   ]
}

Then you can access the album ID using:

<?php

$strPhotoAlbumID = $objFacebookAPI->data[0]->album_object_id;

?>

This is the cleanest solution i've found as Facebook constantly change the format of their photo and album URLs so parsing these with RegEx wont work as a long term fix.

Answer 4

I ended up just using the legacy REST api since the album ID is passed with the link to the image in the server response. I then used a regex to pull the id out.

Not the best solution and I wouldn't recommend it but I feel its better than adding another several server requests to the code.

Answer 5

Long, clunky, but theoretically valid way: http://graph.facebook.com/userid/albumswill get you a list of all the albums the user lets you see, then you can search the album objects (api here) for created_times that match the time you created the album, which you can store when you create the album.

This is almost certainly a horrible way to do it, but it should work.

Answer 6

If I'm understanding you correctly, you have the photo ID but need the album ID. You could try using the photo FQL table with the following query:

SELECT aid, pid FROM photo WHERE pid = '<your photo id>'