title: Diffence between FQL query and Graph API object access
body: <p>What's the difference between accessing user data with the Facebook Graph API (<a href="http://graph.facebook.com/btaylor" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://graph.facebook.com/btaylor</a>) and using the Graph API to make a FQL query of the same user (<a href="https://api.facebook.com/method/fql.query?query=QUERY" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://api.facebook.com/method/fql.query?query=QUERY</a>).</p>
  
  <p>Also, does anyone know which of them the Facebook Developer Toolkit (for ASP.NET) uses?</p>
  
  <p>The reason I ask is because I'm trying to access the logged in user's birthday after they begin a Facebook Connect session on my site, but when I use the toolkit it doesn't return it. However, if I make a manual call to the Graph API for that user object, it does return it. It's possible I might have something wrong with my call from the toolkit. I think I may need to include the session key, but I'm not sure how to get it. Here's the code I'm using:</p>
  
  <pre><code>_connectSession = new ConnectSession(APPLICATION_KEY, SECRET_KEY);
          try
          {
              if (!_connectSession.IsConnected())
              {
                  // Not authenticated, proceed as usual.
                  statusResponse = "Please sign-in with Facebook.";
              }
              else
              {
                  // Authenticated, create API instance
                  _facebookAPI = new Api(_connectSession);
  
                  // Load user
                  user user = _facebookAPI.Users.GetInfo();
  
                  statusResponse = user.ToString();
  
                  ViewData["fb_user"] = user;
  
              }
          }
          catch (Exception ex)
          {
              //An error happened, so disconnect session
              _connectSession.Logout();
              statusResponse = "Please sign-in with Facebook.";
          }
  </code></pre>