What is the most efficient way to get a list of a Facebook user's friends' names in the Facebook iOS SDK?

Question

I want to use the Graph API. And I want to load them into a UITableView. Also loading entire user details is slow... Is there a way that I can make it faster?

One more thing: Is there a way that I can load a page on Facebook in the login window that is provided by the Facebook iOS SDK after the user logs in? Pretty much I want to load a certain fan page with the user's login credentials...

Answer 1

I added the following method to the Facebook Class to get the user's friends list:

-(BOOL) getFriendsList : (id<FBRequestDelegate>) delegate
{
    if (! [self isSessionValid])
    {
        return NO;
    }
    else
    {
        [self requestWithGraphPath:@"me/friends" andDelegate:delegate];
        return YES;
    }
}

For handling the respond from the server i wrote the following method:

- (void)request:(FBRequest *)request didLoad:(id)result
{
    NSDictionary * data = result;
    NSArray *separatedName;
    Contact * current;
    _contactsFromFacebook = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init];

    for (NSDictionary * contact in data) 
    {
        separatedName = [[contact objectForKey:@"name"] componentsSeparatedByString:@" "];
        current = [[Contact alloc] 
            initWithFirstName:[separatedName objectAtIndex:0] 
                  andLastName:[separatedName objectAtIndex:1]];
        if(current.alphabeticKey)
        {
            [self.contactsFromFacebook addObject:current toExsistingArrayWithKey:current.alphabeticKey];
            [self addFriendToImportList:current];
        }
        [current release];
    }
    self.allKeysSorted = [NSMutableArray arrayWithArray:[self.contactsFromFacebook allKeys]];
    [self.tableView reloadData];
 }

Notes:

1. The class "Contact" is a class that i wrote for holding a data about contacts.
2. I only care about the first and last name of the friend.
3. I am holding a dictionary to hold all the contacts from facebook, and al the contacts that are in that dictionary will be displayed in a UITableView
4. At the end of the method, i'm calling [self.tableView reloadData] to (re)load all the contacts that i just got from facebook. if you will try to call it earlier, like in viewDidLoad , you will just end up with an empty table because there are no contacts yet.

Answer 2

Using Facebook SDK 3.0 you can get a list of friends this way:

FBRequest* friendsRequest = [FBRequest requestForMyFriends];
[friendsRequest startWithCompletionHandler: ^(FBRequestConnection *connection,
                                  NSDictionary* result,
                                  NSError *error) {
    NSArray* friends = [result objectForKey:@"data"];
    NSLog(@"Found: %i friends", friends.count);
    for (NSDictionary<FBGraphUser>* friend in friends) {
        NSLog(@"I have a friend named %@ with id %@", friend.name, friend.id);
    }
}];

Consider KNMultiItemSelector to manage the pick list for you.