Question

I’m trying to use Facebook’s REST api, and am encoding a JSON string/dictionary using urllib.urlencode. The result I get however, is different from the correct encoded result (as displayed by pasting the dictionary in the attachment field here http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/rest/stream.publish/). I was wondering if anyone could offer any help.

Thanks.

EDIT:

I’m trying to encode the following dictionary:

{"media": [{"type":"flash", "swfsrc":"http://shopperspoll.webfactional.com/media/flashFile.swf", "height": '100', "width": '100', "expanded_width":"160", "expanded_height":"120", "imgsrc":"http://shopperspoll.webfactional.com/media/laptop1.jpg"}]}

This is the encoded string using urllib.urlencode:

"media=%5B%7B%27swfsrc%27%3A+%27http%3A%2F%2Fshopperspoll.webfactional.com%2Fmedia%2FflashFile.swf%27%2C+%27height%27%3A+%27100%27%2C+%27width%27%3A+%27100%27%2C+%27expanded_width%27%3A+%27160%27%2C+%27imgsrc%27%3A+%27http%3A%2F%2Fshopperspoll.webfactional.com%2Fmedia%2Flaptop1.jpg%27%2C+%27expanded_height%27%3A+%27120%27%2C+%27type%27%3A+%27flash%27%7D%5D“

It’s not letting me copy the result being thrown out from the facebook rest documentation link, but on copying the above dictionary in the attachment field, the result is different.

Answer 1

urllib.encode isn’t meant for urlencoding a single value (as functions of the same name are in many languages), but for encoding a dict of separate values. For example, if I had the dict {"a": 1, "b": 2} it would produce the string "a=1&b=2".

First, you want to encode your dict as JSON.

data = {"media": [{"type":"flash", "swfsrc":"http://shopperspoll.webfactional.com/media/flashFile.swf", "height": '100', "width": '100', "expanded_width":"160", "expanded_height":"120", "imgsrc":"http://shopperspoll.webfactional.com/media/laptop1.jpg"}]}

import json
json_encoded = json.dumps(data)

You can then either use urllib.encode to create a complete query string

import urllib
urllib.encode({"access_token": example, "attachment": json_encoded})
# produces a long string in the form "access_token=...&attachment=..."

or use urllib.quote to just encode your attachment parameter

urllib.quote(json_encoded)
# produces just the part following "&attachment="