Facebook API call with email to return UID

Question

I'm trying to do a simple API call with facebook, with a user-given email to return their uid. Do I really need to auth them before this call is made?

Thanks! :) I'm not doing anything else with the UID besides displaying to the user, which is why I don't really think it's worth authenticating them.

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure you have to have the UID to get any information about a user. Email hashes or the proxied email are not indexed columns (see user fql table http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/User_(FQL)). Though it is pretty easy to get information about the current logged in user. The facebook javascript api/library is a good example.

FB_RequireFeatures(["Api"], function(){
    // Create an ApiClient object, passing app's API key and 
    // a site relative URL to xd_receiver.htm
    FB.Facebook.init(api_key, channel_path);

    var api = FB.Facebook.apiClient;
    api.get_session().uid;
});

http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/JavaScript_Client_Library

Answer 2

Did you ever find out how to get the uid by querying the Facebook database and passing the database table the known email address?