Instagram how to get my user id from username?

Question

I\'m in the process of embedding my image feed in my website using JSON, the URL needs my user id so I can retrieve this feed.

So, where can I find/get my user id?

Answer 1

Instead of using the API, one can examine the Instagram userpage to get the id. Example code in PHP:

$html = file_get_contents("http://instagram.com/");
$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->loadHTML($html);

$xpath = new DOMXPath($doc);
$js = $xpath->query('//body/script[@type="text/javascript"]')->item(1)->nodeValue;

$start = strpos($js, '{');
$end = strrpos($js, ';');
$json = substr($js, $start, $end - $start);

$data = json_decode($json, true);
$data = $data["entry_data"]["UserProfile"][0];
# The "userMedia" entry of $data now has the same structure as the "data" field
# in Instagram API responses to user endpoints queries

echo $data["user"]["id"];

Of course, this code has to be adapted if Instagram changes its page format.