Question

Is it possible to post to a friends wall/timeline in facebook using an app even if the user is not currently logged in? Here’s the code that I’m currently working on, as you can see it posts a message on a friends wall(substitute the friend_id with an actual profile id). This works but a user has to logged in in order to perform this operation.
I don’t have any idea what to do if I want this script to execute automatically(without user intervention).

<?php
require 'php_sdk/src/facebook.php';

$facebook = new Facebook(array(
  'appId'  => 'XXX',
  'secret' => 'XXX',
));

$session = $facebook->getUser();
$me = null;

if($session){
    try{
        $me = $facebook->api('/me');

        $facebook->api('/friend_id/feed', 'post', array('message'=>'hello without user!'));

    }catch(FacebookApiException $e){
        echo $e->getMessage();
    }
}

if($me){
    $logoutUrl = $facebook->getLogoutUrl();
    echo "<a href='$logoutUrl'>Logout</a>";
}else{
    $loginUrl = $facebook->getLoginUrl(array(
        'scope' => 'user_about_me,user_birthday,user_location,email,read_friendlists,friends_location,friends_birthday,publish_stream'
    ));
    echo "<a href='$loginUrl'>Login</a>";
}
?>

Any ideas? Code samples, and links to specific documents that can help me gain a bit of idea on how this works is greatly appreciated thanks!

Answer 1

When the user is logged in, you need to trap their “Access Token”

$facebook = new Facebook(array( 
  'appId'  => 'XXX', 
  'secret' => 'XXX', 
)); 

// NOTE: wrap these in try/catch blocks for safety - this is example only
$session = $facebook->getUser(); 
$access_token = $facebook->getAccessToken(); 

To post as them later, you use the access token

$facebook = new Facebook(array( 
  'appId'  => 'XXX', 
  'secret' => 'XXX', 
)); 

// NOTE: wrap these in try/catch blocks for safety - this is example only
$facebook->setAccessToken($access_token); 
// Then check /me and you should still have the same user.
// Then post to /me/feed to post to the wall.

The token will be valid for 2 days. You can extend this to 60 days if you want.

---

Edit: For exenteding the token, you call the function

$facebook->setExtendedAccessToken();

immediately before “getAccessToken” call.