1. User login’s problem

- When a user successfully logs in on imeem.com, the API only returns a “success” value. But we cannot retrieve the user’s info and data.
- The problem is the API only returns a message, it does not return a string proving that user has logged in.
- Because using API on 2 different domains, cookie and/or session to store the logged in user’s info is not possible.

2. Solution
- The problem can be solved if the developers of imeem edit some API methods. I will explain here.

Step 1: User login
- When a user logs in from another website (using usersLogin method), I think the API should return a “login string”, this string confirms that the user has logged in and can be used to retrieve his/her info on imeem.
- To use this “login string”, in the database of imeem.com there should be a table to store it, let’s call this table the login_string table (either XML file or log file is OK). This is an example about the structure of the login_string table

Id: Auto ID
strLogin: the “login string” to certify that the user has logged in and can be used to do some functionalities provided by the API
userID: ID of user
loginDate: login time (time and date)
expire: the time that strLogin is still valid
apiKey: the API key that was issued to the app developer at application creation

- When a user login on another site, we will usersLogin method and we need to add one more parameter (expire) to usersLogin method

apiKey: The api key that was issued to the app developer at application creation.
version: The desired version of the API. This should be “1.0”.
sig: An MD5 hash of the request as described in the App Authentication guide.
username: imeem user name.
password: imeem user’s password.
expire: the time (in seconds) for a login to be still valid (e.g. 3600 = 1 hour)
keepLoggedIn: whether you wish to keep the user logged in. Boolean (true or false).

- The data will be stored in the login_string table like this:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| id | strLogin | userID | loginDate | expire | apikey |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 1 | any value | 37 | 1120231230 | 1120231230 | myAPI |

How to calculate expire
Expire(col) = loginDate (time()) + $exipre (param)

- After a successful login, API will return a value for “login string” (for example: cf490296df1d34246d16826412db7c38). We will use strLogin to apply for other APIs.

Step 2: using strLogin
- When a “login string” is returned, this string (strLogin) makes sure that the user has logged in on imeem and now we can use the functionalities of imeem.
- For example, with usersGetCurrentUser method, after we have logged in on imeem by using usersLogin method, we will receive a “login string”. We will pass this to usersGetCurrentUser method, thus we need to add one more parameter (strLogin) to usersGetCurrentUser method:

apiKey: The api key that was issued to the app developer at application creation.
Version: The desired version of the API. This should be “1.0”.
sig: An MD5 hash of the request as described in the App Authentication guide.
strLogin: the string that confirms the login

In imeem system:
- Upon receiving a request from usersGetCurrentUser method, imeem system will check strLogin with the login_string table. If this string exists and still valid - between the values in expire (col) và loginDate(col), then the system will return the output of usersGetCurrentUser method. We do it similarly for other API methods.

I think doing this way can fix the issues on imeem.

Why not just use getCurrentUser() to nab the ID of the user that is currently logged in?

Why can't you just use the value of the cookies returned?

If you take the value of the two, and pass that up with every request (as a cookie), it is the same thing as adding that strLogin stuff to every call.

@Laughing Man: API to get ID of user (usersGetCurrentUser) have a problem so I written this solution. You can view here
Ihttp://www.imeem.com/groups/zJqqiqve/forums/U2r0vmoH/NRCp8Opv/usersgetcurrentuser_error_php_script/

@Todd Berman: I don't get cookies returned. If you get it, can you help me?

Khanh,

The following documentation shows the names of the cookies that you should get back with every request.

http://www.imeem.com/developers/documentation/ws/wsoverview/wsuserauth

The specifics for accessing these cookies will depend on the language you are using to develop your application.

Sachin