Facebook Graph API - get a photos album ID

Question

I'm writing an application that uploads a photo to facebook. I'm not supplying an album ID so an album is created on behalf of my app.

My question is: how do I get the album ID the photo was uploaded to?

When I GET the the photo information the album isn't present in the JSON which was my hope.

Answer 1

Jimmy Sawczuk's answer is close, but doesn't work because FQL Photo table columns aid and pid are Rest/FQL API ids, not Graph API ids.

Fortunately the object_id and album_object_id columns in this table are indexable (contrary to the documentation) so this should give you both Rest/FQL & Graph ids for the album:

select aid, album_object_id from photo where object_id = ${GRAPH_PHOTO_ID}

In general object_id fields in Rest/FQL API responses are Graph API id (except for photo notifications, where it's the Rest/FQL id).

Re HonkyHonk's answer: not all photo link urls have a set parameter; in this case I think you can find the Rest/FQL API photo id from its other parameters, and then use Rest/FQL API to get the album id:

• For users with 32-bit user-ids: calculate (id << 32) | pid
  • eg for http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=7518353&id=549683637 this gives 2360873244068853905
• Otherwise concatenate id, _ and pid
  • eg for http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=155052&id=100002937903251 this gives 100002937903251_155052

It would help a lot if Facebook could document something about the two types of ids. Also the Graph API Photo schema should include the album's Graph API id.

Answer 2

This is the easy way to get it :