This library gives programatic access to Google Groups from PHP. It does so by emulating a user's interaction with a browser (AKA "a bot" or "screen scraping"). I can be thought of as a faux-API.
If you would like to encourage Google to create a real API, post in this thread (or "star it"): Groups API.
This library requires that you specify the username and password for a Google Account with manager/admin access to each group that you want to manipulate.
NOTE: This library comes with no gaurentee of service. If Google changes the format of pages or any form submission process, this library may cease to function.
Current features include:
- Add members to a group (using the "direct add" feature)
- Remove members from a group
- Create a new group (and send the CAPTCHA through to your users)
API functions to add:
- Retrieve a list of all members
- Modify member settings
- Modify group settings
- Have "presets" for quickly switching between public, private, and semi-private
- Retrieve URL for RSS feed of group
Other TODO items:
- Remove any page requests before forms that don't set cookies and just submit the form directly
- Add example script to demonstrate of basic functionality
- Better error checking
- Work with international Google Groups URLs
View examples of this script in the exmaples directory.
create_group_example.php- Demonstrates how to complete the 3 step process for creating a group and showing the CAPTCHA to a user.
Notes: You must edit the example file to include your username/password and other settings.
Please submit bug reports and feature requests at the Google Groups PHP API GitHub project page.
A test library with moderate test coverage comes with this library. They are available in the tests directory.
To run the tests, edit the tests/test_config.php file to contain a username/password to use for testing. Then visit the tests/autorun_tests.php from your browser to execute the entire test suite.
To my best (non-expert) reading of the Google Groups Terms of Service, I think that is permissible to use this API. That said, using the library to force-add users to a group for the purposes of SPAM could result in the API being removed.
This code is available under GPL v2.
Development details are available at Google Groups PHP API GitHub project page.
This library may not see a stable release for some months. Currently, development is being done as a proof-of-concept. Use at your own risk.
Written by Jeremy Blanchard from Activism Labs.