Using the new facebook graph api, ajax calls returns null (empty)

Question

Hi all experts!

Im trying out the new graph api for facebook. I'm trying to fetch some data using jquery ajax. This is a sample of my javascript code, very basic...

var mUrl = 'https://graph.facebook.com/19292868552';
   $.ajax({
        url: mUrl,
        dataType: 'json',
        success: function(data, status) {
          $('#test').html(data);
          alert(data);

      },
      error: function(data, e1, e2) {
        $('#hello').html(e1);  
      }
   });

The url is to a page that does not need access tokens (try it using a browser), but the success function returns an empty object or null.

What am I doing wrong? Thankful for all help!

Answer 1

You can't do cross-domain AJAX requests like that due to the same-origin policy. Instead, use Facebook's JavaScript SDK, which is based on a script tag.

Answer 2

...The Graph API supports JSONP. Simply pass callback=methodname as an extra parameter and the returned content will be wrapped in a function call, allowing you to use a dynamically inserted script tag to grab that data. http://forum.developers.facebook.com/viewtopic.php?pid=253084#p253084

Answer 3

I have covered this and asked this question before. I made a quick tutorial which covers exactly this and explains it all.

In short: JSON is not made for cross domain usage according to it's same-origin policy. However the work around is to use JSONP which we can do in jQuery using the supported callback parameter in facebook's graph api. We can do so by adding the parameter onto your url like

https://graph.facebook.com/19292868552?callback=?

by using the callback=? jQuery automatically changes the ? to wrap the json in a function call which then allows jQuery to parse the data successfully.

Also try using $.getJSON method.