Board Thread:Friend Code Exchange/@comment-104.3.30.15-20150420020628/@comment-26224165-20150422070423

Actually, OylerD,  my comment was a shameless segway...

For anyone who's wanted to dig a little deeper, this is for you. Someone mentioned a need to know which Friends are actually playing. This can be important when sending gifts, charging desktop photos/awards, etc.

As it turns out, there is a way to find out by using the Friends_List.xml file. For each Friend, find the line that says, "LastUpdatedDate". The number on htis line is a type of timestamp that indicates the last time that the Friend's game app exchanged information with the game's servers (during gameplay). Without going into details, here's a simple way to use this information:

Save a copy of the Friends_List.xml file (or copy its contents into a Word Processing or Spreadsheet program). Make sure you are playing the game 24 hours later and open the Friends window to make the game servers send a fresh copy of your Friends_List.xml file to your device. If the value of any of your Friends' "LastUpdatedDate" has not changed from the old file to the new one, they have not played the game during that time period. This works for any time difference - if you compare the current file with one that is 2 1/2 days old, it will show you which Friends have not played in the last 2 1/2 days.

This is not the intended use of this timestamp value, but it works. There is a way to convert it directly into a value of Days/Hours/Minutes/Seconds since that Friend's game app exchanged information with the game's servers (during gameplay). This involves some fairly simple calculations/conversions and I will write up a summary and post it in my Blog page on this Wiki in the near future.

I would encourage you to look at the information stored in some of the game's files and think about how you can use it to improve your gameplay (managing friends, gifting, etc.). Maybe you can find programs (apps) that can help. Windows has a third-party program named WinMerge that is excellent at comparing files. I'm including a screenshot of WinMerge comparing a Friends_List.xml file from 7 days ago with the current one. All of the differences are highlighted.

~Donald