How to fetch Gravatar image using PHP

    In this tutorial we will see how to fetch Gravatar image using PHP ? Gravatar uses MD5 algorithm to generate unique hash value of users email address. MD5 is a widely used cryptographic hash function which generates 128-bit (16-byte) hash value which is nothing but 32-digit hexadecimal numbers.
Lets start with tutorial fetch Gravatar image using PHPFor this we will need users email address.
1) Suppose email address is “dev.xxxxx@gmail.com” then
– Make sure there are no white spaces around it, better to use php trim function.
– Convert email address to small case because MD5 is case sensitive and generates two different hash values for same email address with different case.Ex : For email address amit@gmail.com it will create hash key like “4137f5d72b8cf2ee0cad3bf00e165d5f” and for AMIT@GMAIL.COM it would create “ead586effc62adea6ae8003e717d6d22”.

2) Use php MD5 function and pass email address as a argument to that function
md5( “developer.amitpatil@gmail.com” );
it will return hash value of that email address.
now simply append generated hash key to gravatar API url. http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/Generated-HASH-key

Ex : http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/c2243b8fa53bc62c8ffd029978799ddb
Copy this url and paste in browsers address bar and you will see gravatar image.

To embed this in your web page just wrap this link with <img> tag. which will print gravatar image on your web page. like <img src=”http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/c2243b8fa53bc62c8ffd029978799ddb”> will produce image like

fetch Gravatar image using PHP

By default it displays 80X80 px image, you can customize its size by passing s= or size= parameter to the url like
<img src=”http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/c2243b8fa53bc62c8ffd029978799ddb?s=30“> will produce image like below

Lets see more examples