Automate Facebook Integration Tasks from PowerShell

The CData Cmdlets for Facebook are standard PowerShell cmdlets that make it easy to accomplish data cleansing, normalization, backup, and other integration tasks by enabling real-time and bidirectional access to Facebook.

PowerShell Cmdlets or ADO.NET Provider?

The Cmdlets are not only a PowerShell interface to Facebook, but also an SQL interface; this tutorial shows how to use both to create, retrieve, update, and delete Facebook data. We also show examples of the ADO.NET equivalent, which is possible with the CData ADO.NET Provider for Facebook. To access Facebook data from other .NET applications, like LINQPad, use the CData ADO.NET Provider for Facebook.

Once you have acquired the necessary connection properties, accessing Facebook data in PowerShell can be enabled in three steps.

Most tables require user authentication as well as application authentication. Facebook uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate to Facebook, you can use the embedded OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL or you can obtain your own by registering an app with Facebook.

See the Getting Started chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

PowerShell

1. Install the module:

   Install-Module FacebookCmdlets

2. Connect:

   $facebook = Connect-FB -InitiateOAuth "$InitiateOAuth"
   

3. Search for and retrieve data:

   $target = "thesimpsons"
   $posts = Select-FB -Connection $facebook -Table "Posts" -Where "Target = `'$Target`'"
   $posts
   

   You can also use the Invoke-FB cmdlet to execute SQL commands:

   $posts = Invoke-FB -Connection $facebook -Query 'SELECT * FROM Posts WHERE Target = @Target' -Params @{'@Target'='thesimpsons'}
   

ADO.NET

1. Load the provider's assembly:

   [Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFile("C:\Program Files\CData\CData ADO.NET Provider for Facebook\lib\System.Data.CData.Facebook.dll")
    

2. Connect to Facebook:

    
   $conn= New-Object System.Data.CData.Facebook.FacebookConnection("InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;")
   $conn.Open()
   

3. Instantiate the FacebookDataAdapter, execute an SQL query, and output the results:

   $sql="SELECT FromName, LikesCount from Posts"
   
   $da= New-Object System.Data.CData.Facebook.FacebookDataAdapter($sql, $conn)
   $dt= New-Object System.Data.DataTable
   $da.Fill($dt)
   
   $dt.Rows | foreach {
   	Write-Host $_.fromname $_.likescount
   }
    

Update Facebook Data

PowerShell

Update-FB -Connection $Facebook -Columns @('FromName','LikesCount') -Values @('MyFromName', 'MyLikesCount') -Table Posts -Id "MyId"

ADO.NET

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.CData.Facebook.FacebookCommand("UPDATE Posts SET Target='thesimpsons' WHERE Id = @myId", $conn)
$cmd.Parameters.Add((New-Object System.Data.CData.Facebook.FacebookParameter("@myId","10456255-0015501366")))
$cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()

Insert Facebook Data

PowerShell

Add-FB -Connection $Facebook -Table Posts -Columns @("FromName", "LikesCount") -Values @("MyFromName", "MyLikesCount") 

ADO.NET

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.CData.Facebook.FacebookCommand("INSERT INTO Posts (Target) VALUES (@myTarget)", $conn)
$cmd.Parameters.Add((New-Object System.Data.CData.Facebook.FacebookParameter("@myTarget","thesimpsons")))
$cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()

Delete Facebook Data

PowerShell

Remove-FB -Connection $Facebook -Table "Posts" -Id "MyId"

ADO.NET

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.CData.Facebook.FacebookCommand("DELETE FROM Posts WHERE Id=@myId", $conn)
$cmd.Parameters.Add((New-Object System.Data.CData.Facebook.FacebookParameter("@myId","001d000000YBRseAAH")))
$cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()