Using the APIs

Friendica offers multiple API endpoints to interface with third-party applications:

• Twitter
• Mastodon
• Friendica-specific
• GNU Social

Usage

HTTP Method

API endpoints can restrict the HTTP method used to request them. Using an invalid method results in HTTP error 405 "Method Not Allowed".

Authentication

Friendica supports basic HTTP Auth and OAuth to authenticate the user to the APIs.

Errors

When an error occurs in API call, an HTTP error code is returned, with an error message Usually:

• 400 Bad Request: if parameters are missing or items can't be found
• 403 Forbidden: if the authenticated user is missing
• 405 Method Not Allowed: if API was called with an invalid method, e.g. GET when API require POST
• 501 Not Implemented: if the requested API doesn't exist
• 500 Internal Server Error: on other error conditions

Error body is

json:

{
    "error": "Specific error message",
    "request": "API path requested",
    "code": "HTTP error code"
}

xml:

<status>
    <error>Specific error message</error>
    <request>API path requested</request>
    <code>HTTP error code</code>
</status>

Usage Examples

BASH / cURL

/usr/bin/curl -u USER:PASS https://YOUR.FRIENDICA.TLD/api/statuses/update.xml -d source="some source id" -d status="the status you want to post"

Python

The RSStoFriendika code can be used as an example of how to use the API with python. The lines for posting are located at line 21 and following.

def tweet(server, message, group_allow=None): url = server + '/api/statuses/update' urllib2.urlopen(url, urllib.urlencode({'status': message,'group_allow[]':group_allow}, doseq=True))

There is also a module for python 3 for using the API.