The Google+ API

Below is documentation on how to access Google+ resources. It's based on the access patterns of the browser.

What you should be impressed most about this API is how large some of these data objects are. For instance, the Item object below which represents an item in your stream has 23 documented fields while the Google code has room for 91 fields. Who knows what they have in store for us next.

1 Authentication

Authentication is performed by simply POSTing your credentials to a service and tracking cookies. To kick it off, grab some cookies from:

1.1 GET http://plus.google.com

We do this just to collect some cookies and the gpcaz variable in the response URL.

1.2 GET https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=oz&continue=https://plus.google.com/?gpcaz%3DXXXXXXXX&ltmpl=es2st&hideNewAccountLink=1&hl=en-US

We need some more cookies; specifically, GALX which gets set thanks to this call. You will need to substitute gpcaz with the one you got from 1.1.

1.3 POST https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLoginAuth

We pass our credentials to this service to authenticate.

Content-Type	application/x-www-form-urlencoded

ltmpl		es2st
pstMsg		1
dnConn		https://accounts.youtube.com
continue	https://plus.google.com/?gpcaz=XXXXXXXX
service		oz
hl			en-US
timeStmp	
secTok	
GALX		# From cookies in 1.2
Email		# Email address
Passwd		# Password
PersistentCookie	yes
rmShown		1
signIn		Sign in
asts

On a successful POST, you will get back the G+ home page. That page contains a lot of JavaScript data in <script> tags. The next section covers some of that data.

2 The API Data

Every Item has an ItemType which can be one of:

Photos Photos and Profile Photos
Buzz Text Post

2.1 Common Data

Date = [
    0: Day: int
    1: Month: int
    2: Year: int
    3: Formatted: string
]

Job = [
    0: Company: string
    1: Title: string
    2: Dates: Date[]
]

School = [
    0: Name: string
    1: Degree: string
    2: Dates: Date[]
]

Link = [
    1: Url: url
    2: FaviconUrl: relative url
    3: Title: string
    6: AllUrls: url[]        
]

UserData = [    
    2: UserUrl: url
    3: PhotoUrl: url
    4: [
        1: FirstName: string
        2: LastName: string
        3: FullName: string
    ]
    6: [
        1: Profession: string
    ]
    7: [
        1: Jobs: Job[]
    ]
    8: [
        1: Education: School[]
    ]
    9: [
        1: Location: string
        2: PastLocations: string[]
    ]
    10: LocationMapUrl: relative url
    11: [
        0: UserLinks: Link[]
    ]
    30: UserId: string
    33: [
        1: ProfileString: string
    ]
    44: Flags: int[]
    47: [
        1: ShortName: string
    ]        
]

Voter = [
    0: FullName
    1: UserId: string
    2: UserUrl: url
    3: UserPhotoUrl: url
]

Voting = [
    0: UrlId: string
    1: VoteType: int // 4 = post, 5 = comment
    16: TotalVotes: int
    17: KnownVoters: Voter[]
]

Comment = [    
    1: UserFullName: string
    2: FullTextHtml: string
    3: ItemCommentsId: string
    4: CommentInCommentsUrlId: string
    5: FullTextRaw: string
    6: UserId: string
    7: CommentUrlId: string
    10: UserUrl: relative url
    15: Voting
    16: UserPhotoUrl: url    
]

Thumbnail = [
    1: ResourceUrl: url
    2: Height: int
    3: Width: int
]

Media = [
    1: Url: url
    3: ContentType: string
    4: ShortContentType: string
]

MetadataEntry = [
    1: Value
    2: Key
]

Attachment = [
    5: Preview: Thumbnail
    21: SomeImageUrl: url
    24: Media
    41: Thumbnails: Thumbnail[]
    47: Metadata: MetadataEntry[]
]

HiddenComments = [
    0: Count
    1: Commentators: string[]
    2: HiddenCommentsId
    2: ItemCommentsId
]

UserRef = [
    0: FullName: string
    1: UserId: string
    5: UserUrl: relative url
]

Item = [
    0: Up: string
    2: ItemType: string
    3: UserFullName: string
    4: FullTextHtml: string
    5: ItemId: string
    6: FaviconUrl: url
    7: Comments: Comment[]
    8: ItemUrlId: string
    10: Tags: string /* colon separated */
    11: Attachments: Attachment[]
    14: FullTextIntermediate: string
    16: UserId: string
    18: PhotoUrl: url
    20: FullTextRaw: string
    21: PostUrl: relative url
    22: SomeId: string
    24: UserUrl: relative url
    25: RelatedUsers: UserRef[]
    30: ItemCommentsId: string
    33: PreviewHtml: string
    60: HiddenComments
    73: Voting
    84: SomeDomain: string = "social.google.com"        
]

Circle = [
    0: [
        0: CircleId: string
    ]
    1: [
        0: Name: string
        2: Description: string
        12: UrlId: string
        13: Order: int
    ]
]

PagingInfo = [
    0: Page: int // 1-based
    1: NumPages: int
    5: ItemsPerPage: int
    7: Domain: string
]

2.2 Home Data

HomeDate = {
    "2": LoggedInUserData
    "4": StreamItemsData
    "12": CirclesData
}

LoggedInUserData = [        
    0: UserId: string
    1: UserData
    2: Email: string
    4: Culture: string
    20: HumanReadableEmail: string
    21: AllUrl: relative url
]

StreamItemsData = [
    0: Items: Item[]
    2: PagingInfo
]

CirclesData = [
    0: Circles: Circle[]
]

praeclarum/GooglePlus