HOWTO Use the API

This guide will help you understand status.net's API and make a simple application.

Download Software

Download latest status.net release from here.

Alternative Advanced Method

Install from Git

Install Software

NOTE: More advanced installation instructions exist.

• Put expanded files in desired directory on a web server
• Ensure CURL & tidy is installed on your web server. If you are using Ubuntu this can be done by using the command (in the terminal):

sudo apt-get install php5-curl

• Point your browser to /install.php
• Follow instructions to apply appropriate permissions to various directories.
• Reload /install.php after permissions are applied.
• Follow onscreen directions to set up your administrator account.

Write Simple Application

This example is from the API documentation.

• Open a commandline (terminal)
• Familiarize yourself with CURL
• Confirm you have an internet connection
• Run this command by replacing username and password with your statusnet Installation username and password. Also Replace example.com with your StatusNet Installation such as http://rejon.status.net/api/statuses/update.xml

curl -u username:password http://example.com/api/statuses/update.xml -d status='Howdy!' -d lat='30.468' -d long='-94.743'

• You should receive a similar response to the one below:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <status>
      <text>Howdy!</text>
      <truncated>false</truncated>
      <created_at>Tue Mar 30 23:28:05 +0000 2010</created_at>
      <in_reply_to_status_id/>
      <source>api</source>
      <id>26668724</id>
      <in_reply_to_user_id/>
      <in_reply_to_screen_name/>
      <geo xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss">
        <georss:point>30.468 -94.743</georss:point>
      </geo>
      <favorited>false</favorited>
      <user>
        <id>25803</id>
        <name>Jed Sanders</name>
        <screen_name>jedsanders</screen_name>
        <location>Hoop and Holler, Texas</location>
        <description>I like to think of myself as America's Favorite.</description>
        <profile_image_url>http://avatar.example.com/25803-48-20080924200604.png</profile_image_url>
        <url>http://jedsanders.net</url>
        <protected>false</protected>
        <followers_count>5</followers_count>
        <profile_background_color/>
        <profile_text_color/>
        <profile_link_color/>
        <profile_sidebar_fill_color/>
        <profile_sidebar_border_color/>
        <friends_count>2</friends_count>
        <created_at>Wed Sep 24 20:04:00 +0000 2008</created_at>
        <favourites_count>0</favourites_count>
        <utc_offset>0</utc_offset>
        <time_zone>UTC</time_zone>
        <profile_background_image_url/>
        <profile_background_tile>false</profile_background_tile>
        <statuses_count>70</statuses_count>
        <following>true</following>
        <notifications>true</notifications>
      </user>
    </status>

Notice: If your apache does not have "Fancy URLs" enabled, the example url's from above need to change. (e.g. http://example.com/api/statuses/update.xml becomes http://example.com/index.php/api/statuses/update.xml )

Notice: If you are using curl to upload media files, use -F (--form) rather than -d in order to set the content-type header to "multipart/form-data".

Advanced info

• API discovery

External links

• http://status.net/docs/api/