Goodreads Developers discussion

There is an inconsistency in the API documentation for this call.

The API says the URL is http://www.goodreads.com/friend/user.xml.

The sample URL displays as
http://www.goodreads.com/friend/user/...

Given the ID is listed as a required parameter, it would appear the http://www.goodreads.com/friend/user.xml URL is correct and to show a given user's friends it would be
http://www.goodreads.com/friend/user....

Also should I be able to get the friends for ANY Goodreads user I happen to know the Goodreads ID for? I just got my friends via this API, then I took a friend's Goodreads ID from the API and got their friends, then I took the first friend of that friend and got their friends...

hmmmm



what happens with /friend/user/?format=xml&id=BLAH ?

Good question, that is a syntax that isn't documented at all. I can try it and report back.

Before I tried your format, I tried
http://www.goodreads.com/friend/user/...

and it returned what looks like valid XML.

Does this API even need OAuth signing????

Looks like
http://www.goodreads.com/friend/user/...
also returns valid looking XML, even with two slashes in the URL!

http://www.goodreads.com/friend/user/...
also seems to work

Hmmm I'm not really sure, it might need oauth for some users, but not all users (private profiles).

This API requires OAuth. The reason why it works with just key auth in the browser is because you are logged in on the website.

You will get data about friends of any user, but only if the user's privacy settings allow it.

So to really test my OAuth calls I need to be logged out of the site?