Developer's Guide: PHP

The Blogger Data API allows client applications to view and update Blogger content in the form of Google Data API feeds.

Your client application can use the Blogger Data API to create new blog posts, edit or delete existing blog posts, and query for blog posts that match particular criteria.

In addition to providing some background on the capabilities of the Blogger Data API, this document provides examples of basic Data API interactions using the Zend Google Data APIs client library. If you're interested in understanding more about the underlying protocol that the library uses, see the Protocol section of this developer's guide.

Contents

  1. Audience
  2. Getting started
    1. Creating a Blogger account
    2. Running the sample code
    3. Using magic getters and setters
    4. Other resources
  3. Authenticating to the Blogger service
    1. OAuth authentication
    2. AuthSub proxy authentication
    3. ClientLogin username/password authentication
  4. Retrieving a list of blogs
  5. Creating posts
    1. Publishing a blog post
    2. Creating a draft blog post
  6. Retrieving posts
    1. Retrieving all blog posts
    2. Retrieving posts using query parameters
  7. Updating posts
  8. Deleting posts
  9. Comments
    1. Creating comments
    2. Retrieving comments
    3. Deleting comments

Audience

This document is intended for programmers who want to write PHP client applications that can interact with Blogger.

This document assumes that you understand the general ideas behind the Google Data APIs protocol.

For reference information about the classes and methods provided by the client library, see the PHP client library API reference. For general Blogger Data API reference information, see the Protocol reference guide.

Getting started

For help setting up the client library, see the Getting Started Guide.

The Zend client library requires PHP 5.1.4 or later. It's available as part of the Zend Framework and also as a separate download. To interact with Blogger, use version 1.0.0 or later of the client library.

Creating a Blogger account

You may want to sign up for a Blogger account for testing purposes. Blogger uses Google Accounts, so if you already have a Google account, you're all set.

Running the sample code

A full working sample client, containing all the sample code shown in this document, is available in the Zend Framework SVN repository. The sample is located at /framework/standard/trunk/demos/Zend/Gdata/Blogger.php. The sample contains all the functions explained in this document. It can be run only from the command line:

php Blogger.php -- --user=[email_address] --pass=[password]

Before running this sample or developing your own code using the the Zend Framework, you may need to set the include_path and load the appropriate classes. The include path can be set either using a php.ini setting or using the set_include_path method. This code requests access to the core Zend_Gdata class, the Zend_Gdata_Query class, and the authentication class Zend_Gdata_ClientLogin.

require_once 'Zend/Loader.php';
Zend_Loader::loadClass('Zend_Gdata');
Zend_Loader::loadClass('Zend_Gdata_Query');
Zend_Loader::loadClass('Zend_Gdata_ClientLogin');

Using magic getters and setters

Throughout the PHP client library, support has been added for magic setters/getters as a convenience to developers. These allow the properties of a class to be accessed safely using traditional setter/getter methods or by accessing the properties. For example, if $gdataObject is an instance of an object in this library, then the following two lines of code have identical effects:

$gdataObject->setFoo("bar");
$gdataObject->foo = "bar";

Likewise, these two lines of code also have identical effects:

$baz = $gdataObject->getFoo();
$baz = $gdataObject->foo;

Similarly, magic factory methods make declaring new objects easier. Instead of remembering the long class names mandated by the Zend naming convention, you can create a new object by calling newObject(); on a Zend service client. For example, the following two snippets both declare a new draft extension object. You'll see more on drafts in the creating a post section.

// Traditional instantiation
$gdClient = new Zend_Gdata();
$draft = new Zend_Gdata_App_Extension_Draft();

// Magic factory instantiation
$gdClient = new Zend_Gdata();
$draft = $gdClient->newDraft();

The magic setters/getters and factories are optional, so use whichever approach works best for you.

Other resources

Other resources for the Zend Framework's Google Data APIs component (Zend_Gdata):

Authenticating to the Blogger service

You can access both public and private feeds using the Blogger Data API. Public feeds don't require any authentication, but they are read-only. If you want to modify blogs, then your client needs to authenticate before requesting private feeds. It can authenticate using any of three approaches: OAuth authentication, AuthSub proxy authentication or ClientLogin username/password authentication.

For more information about authentication with Google Data APIs in general, see the authentication documentation.

Most of the samples in subsequent sections of this document assume you have an authenticated client object called $gdClient.

OAuth authentication

For documentation about OAuth authentication using the Zend PHP GData library, please see OAuth in the Google Data Protocol Client Libraries.

AuthSub proxy authentication

AuthSub proxy authentication is used by web applications that need to authenticate their users to Google Accounts. The website operator and the client code don't have access to the username and password for the Blogger user; instead, the client obtains special AuthSub tokens that allow the client to act on a particular user's behalf. For more detailed information, see the AuthSub documentation.

When a user first visits your application, they have not yet been authenticated. In this case, you need to display some information and a link directing the user to a Google page to authenticate your request for access to their blogs. The Zend client library provides a function to generate the Google page's URL. The code below retrieves the URL of the AuthSubRequest page:

function getAuthSubUrl()
{
  $next = getCurrentUrl();
  $scope = 'http://www.google.com/blogger/feeds/';
  $secure = false;
  $session = true;
  return Zend_Gdata_AuthSub::getAuthSubTokenUri($next, $scope, $secure, $session);
}

$authSubUrl = getAuthSubUrl();
echo '<a href=\"$authSubUrl\">login to your Google account</a>';

The getAuthSubTokenUri method takes the following parameters (corresponding to the query parameters used by the AuthSubRequest handler):

next
The URL of the page that Google should redirect the user to after authentication.
scope
Indicates that the application is requesting a token to access Blogger feeds. The scope string to use is http://www.blogger.com/feeds/ (URL-encoded, of course).
secure
Indicates whether the client is requesting a secure token.
session
Indicates whether the token returned can be exchanged for a multi-use (session) token.

The above example shows a call that doesn't request a secure token (the value of secure is false). The resulting request URL might look like this:

https://www.google.com/accounts/AuthSubRequest?scope=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogger.com%2Ffeeds%2F&session=1&secure=0&next=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2Fwelcome.php

The user follows the link to Google's site and authenticates to their Google Account.

After the user authenticates, the AuthSub system redirects them to the URL you specified in the next query parameter of the AuthSubRequest URL. The AuthSub system appends an authentication token to that URL, as the value of the token query parameter. For example:

http://www.example.com/welcome.php?token=yourAuthToken

You can retrieve the token value using $_GET['token'].

This token value represents a single-use AuthSub token. In this example, since $session = true was specified, this token can be exchanged for an AuthSub session token using the Zend_Gdata_AuthSub::getAuthSubSessionToken method, which calls the AuthSubSessionToken service:

if(! isset($_SESSION['sessionToken']) && isset($_GET['token'])) {
  $_SESSION['sessionToken'] =
      Zend_Gdata_AuthSub::getAuthSubSessionToken($_GET['token']);
}

The code snippet first checks whether an AuthSub session token is already present. If it isn't, but a single-use token is specified in the URL, then the code snippet passes the one-time-use token to the getAuthSubSessionToken method, and the AuthSub interface returns a session token. The code then puts the session token value in the session variable $_SESSION['sessionToken'].

Your application can then use the session token value in subsequent interactions with Blogger. You can use the Zend_Gdata_AuthSub::getHttpClient method to get a Zend_Http_Client object that has the Authorization header preset to include AuthSub credentials:

$client = Zend_Gdata_AuthSub::getHttpClient($_SESSION['sessionToken']);

ClientLogin username/password authentication

Use ClientLogin authentication if your client is a standalone, single-user "installed" client (such as a desktop application).

The following code uses the Zend_Gdata_ClientLogin::getHttpClient method to perform a request to the ClientLogin service, retrieve an authentication token, and create a Zend_Http_Client object with the appropriate authentication header. Then, the HttpClient returned by this method is used to construct a Zend_Gdata service object.

Notice that $accountType is explicitly set to GOOGLE. Failure to set this parameter will prevent G Suite users from successfully using the Blogger API. 

$user = 'user@example.com';
$pass = 'secretPasswd';
$service = 'blogger';

$client = Zend_Gdata_ClientLogin::getHttpClient($user, $pass, $service, null,
        Zend_Gdata_ClientLogin::DEFAULT_SOURCE, null, null,
        Zend_Gdata_ClientLogin::CLIENTLOGIN_URI, 'GOOGLE');
$gdClient = new Zend_Gdata($client);

For more information about ClientLogin authentication, including sample requests and responses, see the Authentication for Installed Applications documentation.

Note: Use the same token for all requests in a given session; don't acquire a new token for each Blogger request.

Note: As described in the ClientLogin documentation, the authentication request may fail and request a CAPTCHA challenge. If you want Google to issue and handle the CAPTCHA challenge, then send the user to https://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha?service=blogger (rather than to the CAPTCHA-handling URL given in the ClientLogin documentation).

Retrieving a list of blogs

The Blogger Data API provides a feed that lists the blogs for a particular user; that feed is known as a "metafeed."

The following sample code uses an authenticated $gdClient object to retrieve the metafeed and then prints each blog's title.

The Zend_Gdata_Query class takes care of constructing the query URL. In this case, no additional work needs to be done, but the usefulness of the Query class will become apparent in the retrieving posts by query parameters section of this document.

function printAllBlogs()
{
  $query = new Zend_Gdata_Query('http://www.blogger.com/feeds/default/blogs');
  $feed = $gdClient->getFeed($query);
  printFeed($feed);
}

function printFeed($feed)
{
  $i = 0;
  foreach($feed->entries as $entry) {
    print $i ." ". $entry->title->text . "\n";
    $i++;
  }
}

Note the URL used by the getFeed method. This is the default metafeed URL; it returns a list of blogs for the currently authenticated user. To access a feed for a different user, you can put the user's ID in place of default in the metafeed URL. The user's ID is the string of digits at the end of the user's profile URL.

The snippet of code below demonstrates how to extract a blog ID from the feed. You will need the blog ID to perform create, update, and deletion operations on posts and comments. The $index variable represents which blog in the user's blog feed is being used. The id field takes the form tag:blogger.com,1999:user-userID.blog-blogID, so a split on the '-' character places the blog ID in the last element of the resulting array.

$idText = split('-', $feed->entries[$index]->id->text);
$blogID = $idText[2];

Creating posts

The Blogger Data API allows you to create and publish new blog entries, as well as creating drafts of entries.

Note: Setting a custom author for posts is currently not supported. All new posts will appear as if they were created by the currently authenticated user.

Publishing a blog post

You can use the PHP client library to publish new blog entries.

First, create an entry instance to represent the blog post. Then you can set the title, content and other attributes of the blog post. Finally, call the insertEntry method to insert the post. You can see the magic factory instantiations at work here with the new Zend_Gdata_Entry, Zend_Gdata_App_Extension_Title, and Zend_Gdata_App_Extension_Content objects.

function createPublishedPost($title='Hello, world!', $content='I am blogging on the internet.')
{
  $uri = 'http://www.blogger.com/feeds/' . $blogID . '/posts/default';
  $entry = $gdClient->newEntry();
  $entry->title = $gdClient->newTitle($title);
  $entry->content = $gdClient->newContent($content);
  $entry->content->setType('text');

  $createdPost = $gdClient->insertEntry($entry, $uri);
  $idText = split('-', $createdPost->id->text);
  $newPostID = $idText[2];

  return $newPostID;
}

Creating a draft blog post

Draft posts are created in the same way as public posts, but you need to set the draft attribute of the entry object. You can create a blog post like the one above as a draft by adding the highlighted lines:

function createDraftPost($title='Salutations, world!', $content='Hmm ... not quite right, must rework the title later.')
{
  $uri = 'http://www.blogger.com/feeds/' . $blogID . '/posts/default';
  $entry = $gdClient->newEntry();

  $entry->title = $gdClient->newTitle(trim($title));
  $entry->content = $gdClient->newContent($content);
  $entry->content->setType('text');

  $control = $gdClient->newControl();
  $draft = $gdClient->newDraft('yes');
  $control->setDraft($draft);
  $entry->control = $control;

  $createdPost = $gdClient->insertEntry($entry, $uri);
  $idText = split('-', $createdPost->id->text);
  return $idText[2];
}

In much the same fashion as setting the title or content of a post, you create new Zend_Gdata_App_Extension_Control and Zend_Gdata_App_Extension_Draft objects and assign them to the entry's control attribute.

You can turn an existing draft blog post into a published post by retrieving the draft post, setting the draft attribute to no, and then updating the post. We'll cover retrieving and updating posts in the next two sections.

Retrieving posts

The following sections describe how to retrieve a list of blog posts, with and without query parameters.

You can query a Blogger public feed without authentication. Therefore, you don't need to set credentials or do AuthSub authentication before retrieving posts from a public blog.

Retrieving all blog posts

To retrieve the user's posts, call the same getFeed method used to retrieve the blogs metafeed, but this time send the blog-post feed URL:

function printAllPosts($gdClient, $blogID)
{
  $query = new Zend_Gdata_Query('http://www.blogger.com/feeds/' . $blogID . '/posts/default');
  $feed = $gdClient->getFeed($query);
  printFeed($feed);
}

Retrieving posts using query parameters

The Blogger Data API lets you request a set of entries that match specified criteria, such as requesting blog posts published or updated in a given date range. To do this, you create a query object and pass it to the getFeed method.

For example, to send a date-range query, set the published-min and published-max parameters of the query object. The following code snippet prints the title and contents of each blog post published between the given start time and end time:

function printPostsInDateRange($gdClient, $blogID, $startDate='2007-04-01', $endDate='2007-04-25')
{
  $query = new Zend_Gdata_Query('http://www.blogger.com/feeds/' . $blogID . '/posts/default');
  $query->setParam('published-min', $startDate);
  $query->setParam('published-max', $endDate);

  $feed = $gdClient->getFeed($query);
  printFeed($feed);
}

A useful debugging method for the Zend_Gdata_Query class is getQueryUrl(), which will show you the encoded URL that has been constructed.

Note: There are currently no magic setters for the published-min and published-max query parameters. However, you can use setStartIndex and setMaxResults.

The Blogger Data API supports the following query parameters:

categories
Specifies categories (also known as labels) to filter the feed results. For example, http://www.blogger.com/feeds/blogID/posts/default/-/Fritz/Laurie returns entries with both the labels Fritz and Laurie.
max-results
The maximum number of entries to return.
published-min, published-max
The bounds on entry publication dates.
start-index
The 1-based index of the first result to be retrieved (for paging).

For more information about query parameters, see the Blogger Data API Reference Guide and the Google Data APIs Reference Guide.

Updating posts

To update an existing blog post, first you retrieve the entry you want to update, then you modify it, and then you send it to Blogger using the save method. The following code snippet modifies the title and content of a blog entry, assuming that you've already retrieved the entry from the server.

public function updatePost($postID, $updatedTitle='Hello, World?',
                           $updatedContent='UPDATE: Still blogging',
                           $isDraft=False)
{
  $query = new Zend_Gdata_Query('http://www.blogger.com/feeds/' . $blogID . '/posts/default/' . $postID);
  $postToUpdate = $dClient->getEntry($query);
  $postToUpdate->title->text = $this->gdClient->newTitle($updatedTitle);
  $postToUpdate->content->text = $this->gdClient->newContent($updatedContent);

  if ($isDraft) {
    $draft = $gdClient->newDraft('yes');
  } else {
    $draft = $gdClient->newDraft('no');
  }

  $control = $gdClient->newControl();
  $control->setDraft($draft);
  $postToUpdate->control = $control;

  $updatedPost = $postToUpdate->save();
  return $updatedPost;
}

Note: Modifying the author data associated with posts is currently not supported.

Deleting posts

To delete a post, pass the post's edit URL to the delete method on your $gdClient object, like this:

public function deletePost($gdClient, $blogID, $postID)
{
  $uri = 'http://www.blogger.com/feeds/' . $blogID . '/posts/default/' . $postID;
  $gdClient->delete($uri);
}

Comments

The Blogger Data API allows for creating, retrieving, and deleting comments. Updating comments is not supported (nor is it available in the web interface).

Creating comments

To post a comment, create an entry object and insert it as follows:

function createComment($gdClient, $blogID, $postID, $commentText)
{
  $uri = 'http://www.blogger.com/feeds/' . $blogID . '/' . $postID . '/comments/default';

  $newComment = $gdClient->newEntry();
  $newComment->content = $gdClient->newContent($commentText);
  $newComment->content->setType('text');
  $createdComment = $gdClient->insertEntry($newComment, $uri);

  $editLink = split('/', $createdComment->getEditLink()->href);
  $newCommentID = $editLink[8];

  return $newCommentID; 
}

Note: Currently, you can only post comments to a blog owned by the authenticated user.

Note: Setting a custom author for comments is currently not supported. All new comments will appear as if they were created by the currently authenticated user.

Retrieving comments

You can retrieve the comments for a particular post from the post's comments feed URL:

public function printPostComments($gdClient, $blogID, $postID)
{
  $query = new Zend_Gdata_Query('http://www.blogger.com/feeds/' . $blogID . '/' . $postID . '/comments/default');
  $feed = $gdClient->getFeed($query);
  $printFeed($feed);
}

Or you can get the comments from all posts by using the blog's comments feed URL:

http://www.blogger.com/feeds/blogID/comments/default

Deleting comments

To delete a comment, pass the comment's edit URL to the delete method on your $gdClient object like this:

public function deleteComment($gdClient, $blogID, $postID, $commentID)
{
  $uri = 'http://www.blogger.com/feeds/' . $blogID . '/' . $postID . '/comments/default/' . $commentID;
  $gdClient->delete($uri);
}

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