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FLIST

An FLIST (short for Friend List) is a flexible and powerful method of specifying one or more facebook users to FBCMD.  The term users is more accurate than friends because FLISTs can also include people who are not necessarily your friends (including yourself).  In addition, some FBCMD commands also support Pages (celebrities, TV shows, applications, etc.) in FLISTS.

Tip: The FRIENDS command is very useful for testing an FLIST: It will show all the users that match your FLIST (even if they aren't your friend)

The following sections will show you all the ways FLISTs can be used:

Exact Match

You can always specify the full name of your friend: (it is not case sensitive)
fbcmd friends "Bob Smith"
fbcmd friends "alice jones"

Partial Match

If there is no exact match, then the list will include all friends who partially match:
fbcmd friends "Al"
will match all friends with Al in their name (Alice, Albert, Neal, Frank Small, etc.)

Single Match

You can also use Tag Matching in FLISTs, which will enforce single matches.  If you use the prefix (@) it will use Tag Matching
fbcmd friends @Al
will only succeed if there is a single match.  See Tag Matching for more details

Regular Expressions

If you're unfamiliar with regular expressions, don't lose any sleep and skip over this section.  All partial matches are also (case-insensitive) Perl regular expressions:
fbcmd FRIENDS "^D"
will match all friends who's name begins with D, and
fbcmd FRIENDS "\sT\S*$"
will match anyone who's last name begins with T, and
fbcmd FRIENDS "^D.*\sT\S*$"
will match all friends who's first name begins with D and last name begins with T

Special Keywords

The following special keywords can be used in FLISTs:

 =all All of your friends
 =me You (the authorized current user)
 =bday All friends with today's birthday
 =online All friends currently online
 =pages All pages you are a fan of (if pages are allowed)

fbcmd FRIENDS "=me"

Exact ID

If you know the exact User ID you can specify the numeric value:
fbcmd FRIENDS 12345678

Multiple Entries

FLISTs can be a comma separated list of entries:
fbcmd FRIENDS "Bob Smith,Al,=me,12345678"

Friend Lists

If you have created friend lists within facebook (such as Family, Work, etc.) then you can match by friend list by prefixing the entry with an underscore (_) :
fbcmd FRIENDS "_family"
fbcmd FRIENDS "_12345678"

Groups

If you are a member of a group (or know the Group ID) then you can match all people in that group by prefixing the entry with a tilde (~) :
fbcmd FRIENDS "~My Group"
fbcmd FRIENDS "~12345678"

Username

If you want to match by username, prefix the entry with an !
fbcmd FRIENDS !bobsmith

Pages

If you want to match page names, prefix the entry with a +
fbcmd FRIENDS "+The Onion,+Command Line"

Additional Notes

  • The techniques for partial matching friends will also work for matching Friend Lists, Usernames and Pages, so <FRIENDS "+Comm"> will match Command Line (if you're a fan of it... and if not, why not?)
  • Partial matching will work for Group Names only if it matches a single group name.
  • Some Commands (NSEND, WALLPOST) will allow partial matches only if it matches a single friend (to avoid unnecessary spam) so you can use the command <WALLPOST "bob"> if you only have one friend named Bob.
  • Only some commands allow Pages
  • If you specify IDs that are NOT friends (such as group members that are not friends) the command may not work properly.
  • The prefix characters (_,~,!,+,@) used in FLISTS can be changed with the preferences: (prefix_friendlist, prefix_group, prefix_username, prefix_page, prefix_tag)

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