There's been a few requests for a Member API for external applications to see member information and all.  I've finally built it.

It uses Session ID's, so you MUST have it installed and working, and the users must be logged in with SIDs.  I've enabled SID-only login available here since it was implemented basically.  It's more secure, and it's better to use.

That out the way, here's how to use it.  It's simple, all you must do is pass the sid to the script via HTTP and it'll return the entire member data (except for password and admin passcode).  You may also use it by doing a require('API.pl') in any other Perl script, then by calling the actual routines.

HTTP Method
API.pl?sid-sessionid/ This information can be found in the users cookie (cookieprefix_session).  Let the external application get this cookie, and then call the script and it'll return a list of values, like so:

Code <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <user> <id>admin</id> <snurl><a href="v-memberpanel/a-view/u-admin/" rel="nofollow" onclick="target='_parent';">admin</a></snurl> <lastvisit>1169526813</lastvisit> <rndsid>-260239|1169577389</rndsid> <lastactive>1169577389</lastactive> <option2></option2> <pmnew>0</pmnew> <msn>msn</msn> <email>justin@eblah.com</email> <option1></option1> <posts>87</posts> <lng>Romanian</lng> <personaltxt>Personal Message</personaltxt> <registered>1093208407</registered> <location>&lt;script&gt;asdf</location> <timezone>-6</timezone> <dateformat>F j, Y, g:ia</dateformat> <dob>4/25/1986</dob> <skype>skype</skype> <siteurl>http://www.site.com</siteurl> <sn>admin</sn> <md5upgrade>1</md5upgrade> <sitename>Sitename</sitename> <admintxt>Admin Text &amp;</admintxt> <avatar>Green_Monster.gif</avatar> <yim>yahoo</yim> <pmcnt>450</pmcnt> <lastpost>1168494636</lastpost> <icq>icq</icq> <blockedusers>1X|</blockedusers> <sex>1</sex> <aim>aim</aim> <sig>Sergio Tinè</sig> <avatarsize>65|50</avatarsize> <lastpm>1166911982</lastpm> </user>

The external application can then decode this information by splitting the first from the second (: ).  The first being the variable, the second being the value of it.  Not too difficult.  It'll be split by a \n, or a new line.  It should be pretty easy to code in PHP or anything else.

require('API.pl')
This is the same as E-Blah's methods, just call the routine.  Get the userid (which is then added to variable $username) by passing the SID to the GetUserID routine, example:

Code GetUserID(SID);

Then the $username variable will have the userid.  You can then run the GetMemberID routine, which will get the data you need from the user's data file, example:

Code GetMemberID($username);

Then you'll have a hash reference of the data, which can be accessed in this manner:

Code $memberid{$username}{'userid_variablename'}

So if you wanted the user's sn, do:

Code $memberid{$username}{'sn'}

In the same way, you can get other MemberID's through this method.  It should be straight forward to just about anyone with a little knowledge of Perl, it's nothing big.  

Enjoy!

Thanks Justin, I will install 10.2 on my test server and have a mess around.
I assumed you weren't going to bother with this, thanks for doing this.

Mike.

The API has been re-released under the Downloads page.

http://www.eblah.com/downloads.php

The new API uses XML for the return instead of the way it used to be (if calling from HTTP).  Enjoy!  

Does this also work for E-Blah SQL?

No.

I'm planning on writing a web application that integrates with the E-Blah Member system, so visitors to my website don't have to have a separate user name/password for the different parts of the site. I guess my question should have been, "If E-Blah SQL does not currently support the Member API (obviously no), do you plan for it to in the future?"

Not right now, partly because I'm too busy, the other reason because you have a full access to the MySQL database, so it shouldn't be too difficult to figure it out that way.

Hello

This looks great. However, I have never written anything in Perl and am struggling with how to use it. I can program in other languages (C++,VB etc) but not Perl. Does anyone have an example of this in use that they could post which would get me started. As background information, we use E-Blah on our church website and would like to add a files page to the website, but only want people to be able to download the file if they are logged on. The files we want to host are MP3 recordings of the service. I have tried including them in a post, but the post is becoming too long and it would be much better in a web page.

Please help me if you can.

Thanks

Jonathan