Getting a friend count from Facebook (possibly using api)

I'm used to working with Twitter, where friend/follower totals are available in a simple XML request.

My goal is a simple "enter your username/user id, and display your friends count".

Is there something like this for Facebook? From what I gather, I'll have to make an appl开发者_运维技巧ication, and have anyone who wants to grab their friends total actually install that app from within their own Facebook profile.

Anyone have any experience with this?

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You can get friend count by fql easily.

There is a friend_count field against the user table that you can query.

SELECT friend_count FROM user WHERE uid = me();

https://graph.facebook.com/fql?q=SELECT friend_count FROM user WHERE uid={any id}

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You do need to set up an application, but it'll work as a Connect app - meaning that users won't have to access it through their Facebook profile at all. In broad terms you'll need to:

1. Set up an application
2. Implement Facebook Connect on your site
3. Get users of your site to log in with Connect. (You can't ask for their username/password.)
4. Make a Friends.get call to the API, probably with the JavaScript client library (although there are server-side ways you can do it)

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Facebook provides an API for developers so you can grab information from Facebook. Check it out at the provided link.

Edit: From your tags, it looks like you are already familiar with the Facebook API. You can use the API with external applications or webpages - it doesn't necessarily need to be used within a Facebook app, if that is what you are asking.