Getting the Album ID with the Facebook C# SDK

I really shouldn’t drink & post like last night… Anyways, cynicism and rantiness wane as sobriety returns, and here’s some code that illustrates uploading a photo to a specific album:

// This is directly out of the Facebook C# SDK sample code (FacebookInfoDialog.cs)
private void btnPostPicture_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    var ofd = new OpenFileDialog
                  {
                      Filter = "JPEG Files|*.jpg",
                      Title = "Select picture to upload"
                  };
    if (ofd.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
    {
        var picture = File.ReadAllBytes(ofd.FileName);

        var fb = new FacebookClient(_accessToken);

        fb.PostCompleted +=
            (o, args) =>
            {
                if (args.Error == null)
                {
                    FacebookClient tmpClient = (FacebookClient)o;
                    Console.WriteLine(args.GetResultData().ToString());
                    JsonObject jo = (JsonObject)args.GetResultData();

                    Console.WriteLine((string)jo["link"]);

                    MessageBox.Show("Picture posted to wall successfully.");
                }
                else
                {
                    MessageBox.Show(args.Error.Message);
                }
            };

        dynamic parameters = new ExpandoObject();
        parameters.caption = txtMessage.Text;
        parameters.method = "facebook.photos.upload";
        // See below for how to get the album ID value:
        parameters.aid = "123456"; // <== This is the album ID.

        var mediaObject = new FacebookMediaObject
                              {
                                  FileName = Path.GetFileName(ofd.FileName),
                                  ContentType = "image/jpeg"
                              };
        mediaObject.SetValue(picture);
        parameters.source = mediaObject;

        fb.PostAsync(parameters);
    }
}

// PARTIAL SNIPPET
// This shows a quick & dirty way to get the album ID:

dynamic jobj = arraySerializer.Deserialize(json, typeof(object));
int counter = 0;
Dictionary<string, string> albums = new Dictionary<string, string>();
// This loop is a sin, but don't get side-tracked.
while (true)
{
    try
    {
        // The link to the album has it's ID:
        string link = Convert.ToString(jobj.data[counter].link);
        // Convert that to a URI:
        Uri url = new Uri(link);
        // Get the query string:
        string query = url.Query;
        // Put the query string into a quick & easy collection:
        NameValueCollection nvc = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(query);
        // Extract the album ID using the literal variable name, "aid":
        string aid = nvc["aid"]; // <== The correct album ID.
        // Add the album ID (aid) and the album name to a dictionary:
        albums.Add(aid, jobj.data[counter].name);
        // If you were to do this, you wouldn't have an album ID that you can use
        // because the "id" in the JSON doesn't return the album:
        // albums.Add(jobj.data[counter].id, jobj.data[counter].name);
    }
    catch
    {
        break;
    }
    counter++;
}

It’s not hard at all. But the lack of decent documentation makes it painful at best.

I’ve been harping on this for a long time: In software components, the real product isn’t *just* the component… It’s the documentation.  The best software in the world is no better than the worst if you can’t use it effectively. That’s what documentation is for.

I hope that helps save someone some time.

Cheers,

Ryan