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10/12/2009 UPDATE: Added fixes from Marcel Chastain

UPDATE: It looks like the version that got uploaded was missing a * in the trigger URL! That might be the issue everyone is having.


UPDATE: Video of the process: fbimport

Facebook’s API + FBConnect is great but it has some severe limitations. Notably, it doesn’t expose all the functionality available on the Facebook  site. Tonight in particular, I wanted to be able to copy a dump of my friends’ names and phone numbers off the site to load into a fresh cell phone. Unfortunately, looking at the API this isn’t possible.

Never fear – Greasemonkey provides enough of a hook into Firefox that it would be possible to write a UserScript to accomplish this.

Continuing beyond this point is probably against the Facebook TOS and will probably severely void your warranty.

You have been warned.

The following describes how to use this userscript to extract your Facebook “Phonebook”. It produces of a CSV of your friends’ names and phone numbers. Fair warning – this is a rough prototype and does almost no error handling. Also, since the “Phone” field is a free text field I can’t promise people will have formatted their numbers in any sane fashion. But either way it’s a good start to revering lost numbers.

So here is what you need to do to use the script:

1. Install Greasemonkey – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748

2. Follow these instructions to install the script – http://userscripts.org/about/installing

Edit: The script is also on Userscripts at http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/43681

3. Navigate over to http://m.facebook.com/friends.php? (You’ll have to login)

4. Answer yes to the prompt and sit back – the script will move through your phonebook and eventually dump you a CSV of the results.

5. Copy/Paste the CSV wherever you want.

6. Un-install the Greasemonkey script.

So that’s it, one less walled garden to worry about. And hopefully one less “I lost my cellphone!” event/group on facebook!

The script:

Facebook Phonebook Exporter

// ==UserScript==
// @name           fb phonebook
// @namespace      setfivefb
// @description    Extract name/phonenumber from fb phonebook. Navigate to http://m.facebook.com/friends.php? and switch the tab to "Phonebook". The script will extract your friends' name/phone and present a CSV at the end.
// @include        http://m.facebook.com/friends.php?*
// ==/UserScript==

// lets make sure we are actually looking at a phonebook page
var nodesSnapshot = document.evaluate('//div[@class="nopad"]/div[@class="nd header"]/small', document, null, XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE, null );
var desc = nodesSnapshot.snapshotItem(2).childNodes;

for(var i=0; i < desc.length; i++){
  // figure out what page we are on
  if(desc[i].nodeName == "B" && desc[i].firstChild.textContent != "Phonebook"){
    return;
 }
}

// get the pagination link
var allLinks = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
var nextLink = "";

nodesSnapshot = document.evaluate('//div[@class="pager"]', document, null, XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE, null );
var pagerLinks = nodesSnapshot.snapshotItem(0).childNodes;

// get the stuff back from the cache
var arr = GM_getValue("setfivefb");
if(arr == null){
  arr = new Array();
}else{
  arr = new String(arr).split("^");
}

// we are on the first page so reset our name/phone cache
// and present a conformation dialog
if( new String(pagerLinks[0].nodeName) == "#text" ){
  arr = new Array();
  var res = confirm("Do you want to extract your phonebook?");
  if(!res)
   return;
}

for(var i=0; i < pagerLinks.length; i++){

  if(pagerLinks[i].innerHTML == "Next"){
  nextLink = "http://m.facebook.com" + new String(pagerLinks[i].getAttribute("href"));
  break;
}
}

// grab all the names+phones off the page
nodesSnapshot = document.evaluate('//table[@class="results"]//tr', document, null, XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE, null );
var obj;
var ns;
var t;
var hasMatch = false;

for ( var i=0 ; i < nodesSnapshot.snapshotLength; i++ )
{
  ns = nodesSnapshot.snapshotItem(i).childNodes[1].childNodes;
  obj = new String();
  hasMatch = false;

  for(var j=0; j  0){

  if(t.indexOf(":") != -1 && ns[j].childNodes[1] && !hasMatch){
  obj += "," + ns[j].childNodes[1].textContent;
  hasMatch = true;
}else{
  obj = t;
}

}
}

if(obj.indexOf(",") == -1)
  obj += ",NaN";

   arr.push(obj);
}

// throw the array into our temporary storage spot and push the page forward
GM_setValue("setfivefb", arr.join("^"));

if(nextLink != "")
  window.location = nextLink;
else{
  // display the results of this mess somewhere
  var str = new Array();
  var tmp;

  for(var i=0; i < arr.length; i++){
  str.push(arr[i]);
}

document.body.innerHTML = str.join("");
}