Trouble parsing facebook graph api json in python

Question

I am having a problem parsing the JSON results from a facebook graph api query (2.5) in python.

I'm trying to get the comments on a status message.

Here's the direct url: where "specific_post_id" is the id of a status post of a page. where "access_token" is the app_id and secret_key from facebook.

https://graph.facebook.com/v2.5/specific_post_id/comments?order=chronological&limit=1&summary=true&access_token=XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The graph explorer is useful as well to see the actual JSON https://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer/

def getFacebookPageCommentData(post_id, access_token, num_comments):
    # construct the URL string
    base = "https://graph.facebook.com"
    node = "/" + post_id + "/comments/" 
    parameters = "?fields=id,message,created_time,like_count,parent&limit=%s&access_token=%s" % (num_comments, access_token) # changed
url = base + node + parameters

    # retrieve data
    data = json.loads(request_until_succeed(url))
    return data

test_comment = getFacebookPageCommentData(post_id, access_token, 1)["data"][0]
print test_comment
[{u'created_time': u'2016-02-23T22:37:34+0000',u'id': u'XXXXXXXXXXXXX_XXXXXXXXXXX',u'like_count': 2,u'message': u'"Your" ? Government'}]

I expected to get some nested JSON back with a "from" field that contains additional data. However, I don't get that back. I'm sure there is some small error, but I can't seem to find it.

So in your test_comment you take ["data"][0], the from data isn't in the rest of the .JSON is it? — JCollerton
OK, so you are expecting that result, but you aren't getting it? — JCollerton
Yes I'm expecting to have access to the "from" field, but I don't — 12programmerwannabe

JCollerton JCollerton · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-24T15:06:00

The problem is that the .JSON returned is pretty confusing and has a lot of nested levels.

If you replace the construction of the URL inside your function:

base = "https://graph.facebook.com/v2.5/" 
parameters = "/comments/?access_token=%s" % access_token 
url = base + post_id + parameters

Then in the .JSON string returned there are two data entries:

getFacebookPageCommentData(post_id, access_token, 1)["data"]
getFacebookPageCommentData(post_id, access_token, 1)["comments"]["data"]

The second of these contains the from information. To then access the from data we then do

getFacebookPageCommentData(post_id, access_token, 1)["comments"]["data"][0]["from"]

Trouble parsing facebook graph api json in python

1 Answers