Graph API

Getting Started

If you're new to the Graph API you should start with the Graph API Getting Started Guide.

The Graph API is the primary way that data is retrieved or posted to Facebook. The Getting Started Guide contains an overview of the basics of the API, walks you through using the Graph API Explorer, shows you how names work, how permissions work, what connections are and puts it all together so the rest of this reference make sense.

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Reading Data

Pictures

Pictures are available on many objects and are the most commonly used object in the graph. This document covers how to access them. Pictures are not Photographs. For Photographs that people upload please see our Photo and Album reference API documents.

Selecting Results

When accessing objects in the graph, you can control which fields are returned.

Pagination

Many of the Graph APIs let you get data in small sets, with a way to page forward and backwards in time. This document covers how to use the pagination arguments and results.

Search

You can search through public objects with the Graph API. This document covers the basics on the objects you can search and how to page through results.

Dates

Many APIs return dates. This document covers the default format we use at Facebook and how you can change it.

Data Access - Login, Privacy and Permissions

Much of the data you'll be accessing via the Graph API requires the user to allow you to access it. This includes reading anything beyond public data or writing data to a user's timeline. This document gives you pointers to what you need to do about the topics of privacy, permissions, login and auth tokens.

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Publishing

Publishing with the Graph API

People, pages, groups and applications all have a way to post stories to their respective timelines. This short article gives the basics of how to create simple posts. This article also covers how to generate likes and create comments.

Deleting

You can delete objects out of the graph. This article shows you how to delete objects, but also how to remove likes.

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Performance

Realtime Updates

It's possible to get updates on objects you care about without having to poll Facebook on a regular basis. Facebook will push updates to you when they change. At scale, this can have a significant performance improvement for your app.

Batch Requests

It's possible to batch a bunch of requests together and make them all at once, instead of having to make a bunch of small requests. This can improve latency and overhead associated with making a large number of changes.

Field Expansion

This feature allows you to get a number of objects with a single query result. Much like batch requests for results, field expansion can reduce latency and improve the performance of your app.

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Apps and Pages

App Analytics

We offer an API for app authors who want to programatically get analytics for their app.

Pages

There are a set of APIs to manage Pages. This lets you build apps that you can use to manage posts, gather analytics, post pictures or many other things.

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Games

App and Games Groups

Games on Facebook can create Facebook groups to give game players the chance to coordinate and socialize.

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Other

Errors

The list of errors that Graph API calls can generate.

Introspection

Many objects allow you to determine the attributes and connections they support at runtime. This can be useful for debugging.

Locale

You can retrieve localized content from the Graph API by adding the locale parameter.

Examples

Some examples for accessing the Graph API.

Request Parameters

There are parameters that you can pass with Graph API requests that modify input and output types.