How to download the profile picture of a facebook user

The follwing function uses the facebook graph API to retrieve the url of the profile picture from the user's id:

import urllib
import simplejson

def getProfilePicUrl(user_id):
 api_query = urllib.urlopen('https://graph.facebook.com/'+user_id)
 dict = simplejson.loads(api_query.read())
 return dict['picture']

When we visit a facebook profile the user id is displayed in the address of the page. This is the address of the cocacola page, in red the user id of coca cola:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=40796308305

now can use the id to save the profile picture of coca cola.

pic_url = getProfilePicUrl('40796308305')
pic = urllib.urlopen(pic_url) # retrieve the picture
f = open("cocacola.jpg","wb")
f.write(pic.read()) # save the pic
f.close()

The script will save the picture on the disk.

Warning: coca cola has a public profile, non-public profile need authentication.

How to use twitter search api

The example show how to search in twitter without using third party libraries. We will use the json data-interchange format provided by twitter.

import urllib
import simplejson

def searchTweets(query):
 search = urllib.urlopen("http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q="+query)
 dict = simplejson.loads(search.read())
 for result in dict["results"]: # result is a list of dictionaries
  print "*",result["text"],"\n"

# we will search tweets about "fc liverpool" football team
searchTweets("fc+liverpool")

The program will print the most popular tweets about fc liverpool

* Poulsen set for return home? http://tinyurl.com/3vnyc9r 

* Now: Watch live press conf - Liverpool FC http://lfc.tv/GYb 

* Who wants 20 percent off a Liverpool fc stuff 

* Liverpool FC manager Gerard Houllier in Birmingham hospital after health s... http://bit.ly/glcgxJ #LFC 

* RT @darsh710: Liverpool Echo: Kenny: Alberto Aquilani welcome back at LFC after Juve loan ends http://bit.ly/emp5QZ  #LFC @ShilChandi @KaushP @BolaAnt 

* RT @empireofthekop: Liverpool Echo : News: Kenny Dalglish: Alberto Aquilani welcome back at Liverpool FC after Juventus loan ends http://bit.ly/emp5QZ #LFC #fb