This code example shows you how to make YQL queries with JavaScript and the OpenSocial function makeRequest. The YQL query in the code example will get data from the GeoPlanet API based on the user's input.

By using the OpenSocial method gadgets.io.makeRequest , you can make calls to a Web service with JavaScript without using a crossdomain.xml file. The calls in this example use 2-legged OAuth authorization.

Before calling the function makeRequest, define the base URI of the YQL Web service, the YQL query, and a callback function to handle the response, as shown below:

To make a call to the YQL Web service, you create a URL-encoded query string with the YQL query and the requested format type of the response and append this query string to the base URI of the YQL Web service. The code snippet below shows the base URI with the appended query string for the YQL Web service. Note that the spaces have been URL-encoded.

This code example has the JavaScript function toQueryString that creates the query string for the call to the YQL Web service as seen below:

By using a closure in the code below, the variable query, which holds the YQL query, is available to makeRequest. The function toQueryString then builds the query string, which is appended to the base URI by makeRequest before making the call to the YQL Web service.

In the code snippet, the function object runQuery is passed the parameters for makeRequest to call the YQL Web service. The handler returns the response data (JSON object) to the OpenSocial function stringify to be converted to a string so it can be displayed in a div tag.

To set up and run yql_query_with_js.html:

This example, yql_basic.php, is a simple application that uses the Yahoo! Social SDK for PHP to make YQL calls. Using YQL with the PHP SDK is ideal because the PHP SDK will handle your OAuth authorization, which is required to access the Social Directory APIs. YQL, in turn, extends the functionality of the PHP SDK by enabling access to the public data from Yahoo! Web services and external data such as RSS and Atom feeds.

To understand the following material, you should already be familiar with the topics covered in My Social PHP Application and the Two-Minute Tutorial.

Before proceeding with the code that makes YQL queries, be sure to include the PHP SDK and define an API Key and a Shared Secret:

There are great number of sources for public data on the Web that can be accessed with YQL. Although public, many of these sources require authorization. With the API Key and the Shared Secret provided by Yahoo!, you can use the PHP SDK to perform two-legged authorization with the YahooApplication class. (If you need to read up on two-legged authorization, see Private Data v. Public Data.) From a YahooApplication object, invoke the method query, which calls the YQL Web service (that is, runs the YQL queries). The following code snippets show you how to perform two-legged authorization with YahooApplication and how to make YQL queries.

The API Key and Shared Secret are passed to the constructor of the YahooApplication class. If the application has been authorized by Yahoo!, the YahooApplication object $two_legged_app is returned:

Next, the application defines two YQL queries: one to the Flickr API, another to the Yahoo! News RSS feed. You can also run these queries in the YQL Console:

With the $two_legged_app object, the application calls the query method. The var_dump shows the structure and contents of the query response of the YQL Web service:

Unlike YQL queries for public data, you need user authorization to obtain data from the Social Directory APIs (Profiles, Updates, Connection, Contacts, and Presence). During the process of user authorization, the user will be redirected to the Yahoo! login page and then asked to authorize your application. You initiate this three-legged authorization process with the YahooSession class. (If you are unfamiliar with the term "three-legged authorization," you may want to read Private Data v. Public Data.) Getting a valid YahooSession object means that the user has authorized your application, allowing you to access this user's private data. The following code snippets show how to perform authorization with YahooSession and how to use YQL to access private social data from Yahoo!

The method requireSession makes sure the user has logged into Yahoo!, redirecting to the Yahoo! login page if necessary. A YahooSession object is returned, confirming that the OAuth authorization has been completed:

The YQL queries and API names are assigned to the associative array $api_queries:

The YQL query is made from the YahooSession object $session with the method query. The use of var_dump allows you to see the contents of the returned response for each YQL query:

The following listing shows the var_dump from the YQL query made on the Profiles API.

This code example shows how to use the YQL INSERT statement in an Open Application to post to your WordPress blog. YML is used to create a simple HTML form for the UI, and PHP is used to call the YQL Web service to run the YQL INSERT statement.

The WordPress Open Application uses the YML tag yml:form for entering information. The attribute params is like the HTML form attribute action. In the code snippet below, the user triggers the call to the script yql_insert_wordpress.php when submitting the form by clicking "Publish".

The attribute insert places the returned response from yql_insert_wordpress.php into the div tag "blog_sect". If "Publish" is clicked again, the contents in this div will be replaced with the new content returned by yql_insert_wordpress.php.

The syntax for the YQL INSERT statement follows that of the SQL INSERT statement:

INSERT INTO (table) (list of comma separated field names) VALUES (list of comma separated values)

Try running the following YQL INSERT statement that references the WordPress Open Table and then view the results at http://yqlblog.wordpress.com .

USE 'http://www.datatables.org/wordpress/wordpress.post.xml' AS wordpress.post; INSERT INTO wordpress.post(title, description, blogurl, username, password) VALUES ("YQL meets WordPress", "Posting with YQL", "http://yqlblog.wordpress.com", "yqlblog", "password")

To set up and run the WordPress Open Application:

This code example shows you how to use YQL with the PHP SDK for YSP to get user updates and the updates for the user's connections. The PHP SDK handles the OAuth authorization, and YQL fetches the user data.

To understand the following material, you should already be familiar with the topics covered in My Social PHP Application and the Two-Minute Tutorial.

The syntax of YQL is similar to that of SQL, and the YQL Web service, like a MySQL database, returns data based on queries. The YQL Web service, however, returns the data in the form of XML or JSON. For more information about making YQL queries, see SELECT Statement.

YQL has a special literal me that holds the GUID of the currently logged in Yahoo! user. This YQL query uses this special literal to get the data of five connections of the currently logged in Yahoo! user.

SELECT * FROM social.connections WHERE owner_guid=me LIMIT 5

From the YQL response for the query above, you can then extract the GUID for each connection. These GUIDs can then be matched against the key guid in a new YQL query to get the updates for each connection as shown in the code snippet below:

SELECT * FROM social.updates WHERE guid='GUID_of_a_connection' LIMIT 5

Now that you have some familiarity with YQL and its syntax, try using the YQL Console to experiment with different YQL queries and different tables such as Flickr and Search.

The code example uses the method requireSession from the class YahooSession to get authorization to access user data and the method query to call the YQL Web service. The code snippets below will focus on authorization and YQL queries.

This one line of code does a lot of work to complete the OAuth authorization. The method requireSession first looks for an existing session, and if it's not found, redirects the user to the Yahoo! login page to sign in. The user can then authorize the app to access private data. The return value of requireSession is a YahooSession object (a session), which you will use next to make YQL queries.

To call the YQL Web service, pass the YQL query to the method query from the YahooSession object $session. In the code snippet below, the results of the queries are passed to the variables $user_updates and $user_connections to be parsed for specific data.

To set up and run yql_updates.php: