GitHub OAuth in lua

Question

I am working on a library in LUA for an ipad app called Codea. I'm trying to figure out to use OAuth for GitHub Gists. Only part that i can not figure out is how to get an Auth token via code. I used curl in terminal to get myself a token but this seems to be to much work for other users.

I've read through the github api docs multiple times but I cant figure out how to get a Token programmatically. I've tried to duplicate the method I've used to GET and POST gists but it does not seem to work. I'm not sure how to pass the username and password. I'm creating a table with the needed params then encoding it in json. Everything I try gets a 404 error or 500 error. Thank you all in advance.

local url = "https://api.github.com/authorizations"
local d = {}
d.scopes = {"gist"}
d.note = "AutoGist Codea"
projectAuth = json.encode(d)

opts = { data = projectAuth }
opts.method = "POST"
opts.headers = {Authorization = "basic " .."username:password"}
http.request(url,successCallback,failedCallback,opts)

I think I could get this working if I could just figure out how to get client_id and client_secret. How do I get these? — briarfox, May 08 '13 at 22:28
This code does not compile because the string in the first line is not closed. — lhf, May 08 '13 at 22:44

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 05 '13 at 08:51

Scopes are coming, but only in Q4 2013.

See "OAuth changes coming" (October 2013, by Tim Cleam - tclem):

Starting today, we are returning granted scopes as part of the access_token response.
For example, if you are making a POST with the application/json mime-type you’ll see an additional field for the granted scopes.

{
  "access_token":"e72e16c7e42f292c6912e7710c838347ae178b4a",
  "scope":"repo,gist",
  "token_type":"bearer"
  }

Right now, these scopes will be identical to what you requested, but we are moving towards a feature set that will allow GitHub users to edit their scopes, effectively granting your application less access than you originally requested.
You should be aware of this possibility and adjust your application behavior accordingly.

Some things to watch out for and keep in mind:

Most third party applications using GitHub OAuth to identify users have the best success in adoption by starting out with a request for the minimum access that the application can possibly get away with.
Something like no scopes or just user:email is very sane.

It is important to handle the error cases where a users chooses to grant you less access than you originally requested.
Now that we are surfacing the granted scopes on the access_token response, applications can warn or otherwise communicate with their users that they will see reduced functionality or be unable to perform some actions.

Applications can always send users back through the flow again to get additional permission, but don’t forget that users can always say no.

GitHub OAuth in lua

1 Answers1

Some things to watch out for and keep in mind: