Get newest post from a Facebook page as a string in JavaScript

Question

I simply need to get the newest post from a specific Facebook page as a string in JavaScript for a website. I have never used the Facebook API and I'm still new to JavaScript, after many attempts I just can't figure out what the problem is...

So far this is everything I've done:

Created a Facebook app, chose 'website' for the platform
Inserted the JavaScript SDK code that I got from Facebook into my website code and replaced the placeholder 'appID' with the 'App ID' from my Facebook app
Became admin to the Facebook Page
On the Graph API Explorer page used the 'Get Token' dropdown to select 'Get Page Access Token', then selected the Facebook Page that shows up in the dropdown
Used the following request in the Graph API Explorer: 'https://www.facebook.com/pagenamehere/?fields=posts.limit(1)' (The output provides the post I need but with some extra information like "create_time", "id", etc. that I will most likely remove in JavaScript unless there is a more precise request I can use instead since I only need "message")
Copied the provided JavaScript code from 'Get Code' and inserted this under the JavaScript SDK code
replaced '//Insert your code here' with 'alert (response)', the alert message is: [object Object]

Either I don't know how to obtain "message" from '[object Object]', or I'm not getting the response I need. I've tried to do this with the webpage on a live server.

Please help, I'm out of ideas and I've read the Facebook API too many times.

Thanks in advance.

this is the problem with using `alert` as a debugging tool ... it stinks ... try `console.log(response);` and check your browser developer tools console for the output — Jaromanda X, Nov 23 '15 at 04:32

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 23 '15 at 07:58

It's simple. Just have a look at the Graph API Explorer, and you'll get the idea how to access the message property:

Sample Graph API Explorer call

A call to /buzzfeed/feed?limit=1 will return

{
  "data": [
    {
      "message": "science",
      "created_time": "2015-11-23T07:01:00+0000",
      "id": "21898300328_10154109572045329"
    }
  ],
  "paging": {
    "previous": "https://graph.facebook.com/v2.5/21898300328/feed?limit=1&format=json&since=1448262060&access_token=&__paging_token=&__previous=1",
    "next": "https://graph.facebook.com/v2.5/21898300328/feed?limit=1&format=json&access_token=&until=1448262060&__paging_token="
  }
}

which means that

console.log(JSON.stringify(response.data.message));

should print you the message.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

Thank you for your suggestions, they helped point me in the right direction and I was able to get this to work.

Here are the missing steps from my original post required to make it work:

Had to also add my domain to the 'Valid OAuth redirect URIs' field in 'My Apps' -> 'Settings' -> 'Advanced'
My access token had to be included in the code generated from the Graph API Explorer, like the answer in this post: (your user access token should be extended to 60 days in the 'Access Token Tool' page by clicking 'debug' -> 'Extend Access Token' and using this token in the code)
The Facebook SDK needs to finish loading before the code generated from the Graph API Explorer is executed, I used Mohammed Arif's answer from this question to do this but I had to use a delay for it to work. I put his code in a function that runs after a 200ms setTimeout, if it is loaded the code generated from the Graph API Explorer executes, else I run the function after a 200ms setTimeout again.
Tobi's answer to part of the question (to get the message) was almost correct: response.data[0].message;

Get newest post from a Facebook page as a string in JavaScript

2 Answers2