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fdbae010 | 1 | Python Twitter Tools |
a65893e4 | 2 | ==================== |
fdbae010 | 3 | |
f1a8ed67 | 4 | The Minimalist Twitter API for Python is a Python API for Twitter, |
5 | everyone's favorite Web 2.0 Facebook-style status updater for people | |
6 | on the go. | |
fdbae010 | 7 | |
f1a8ed67 | 8 | Also included is a twitter command-line tool for getting your friends' |
9 | tweets and setting your own tweet from the safety and security of your | |
5b8b1ead | 10 | favorite shell and an IRC bot that can announce Twitter updates to an |
f1a8ed67 | 11 | IRC channel. |
fdbae010 | 12 | |
5f47b302 | 13 | For more information, after installing the `twitter` package: |
fdbae010 | 14 | |
15 | * import the `twitter` package and run help() on it | |
16 | * run `twitter -h` for command-line tool help | |
17 | * run `twitterbot -h` for IRC bot help | |
8be9a740 | 18 | * visit http://mike.verdone.ca/twitter for more info |
19 | ||
a65893e4 | 20 | |
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21 | |
22 | twitter - The Command-Line Tool | |
23 | ------------------------------- | |
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24 | |
25 | The command-line tool currently supports the following things: | |
26 | ||
27 | * view your friends' recent tweets | |
28 | * view your recent replies | |
29 | * view the public timeline | |
30 | * follow and unfollow (leave) friends | |
5f47b302 | 31 | * view tweets from lists |
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32 | * various output formats for tweet information |
33 | * read your username and password from a config file | |
51e0b8f1 | 34 | |
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35 | The bottom line: type `twitter`, receive tweets. |
36 | ||
37 | ||
38 | ||
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39 | twitterbot - The IRC Bot |
40 | ------------------------ | |
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41 | |
42 | The IRC bot is associated with a twitter account (either your own account or an | |
43 | account you create for the bot). The bot announces all tweets from friends | |
44 | it is following. It can be made to follow or leave friends through IRC /msg | |
45 | commands. | |
46 | ||
5f47b302 | 47 | |
5f47b302 | 48 | twitter-log |
51e0b8f1 | 49 | ----------- |
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50 | |
51 | `twitter-log` is a simple command-line tool that dumps all public | |
52 | tweets from a given user in a simple text format. It is useful to get | |
53 | a complete offsite backup of all your tweets. Run `twitter-log` and | |
54 | read the instructions. | |
55 | ||
56 | ||
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57 | Programming with the Twitter api classes |
58 | ======================================== | |
59 | ||
60 | ||
61 | The Twitter and TwitterStream classes are the key to building your own | |
62 | Twitter-enabled applications. | |
63 | ||
64 | ||
65 | The Twitter class | |
66 | ----------------- | |
67 | ||
68 | The minimalist yet fully featured Twitter API class. | |
69 | ||
70 | Get RESTful data by accessing members of this class. The result | |
71 | is decoded python objects (lists and dicts). | |
72 | ||
73 | The Twitter API is documented at: | |
74 | ||
75 | http://dev.twitter.com/doc | |
76 | ||
77 | ||
78 | Examples:: | |
79 | ||
80 | twitter = Twitter( | |
81 | auth=OAuth(token, token_key, con_secret, con_secret_key))) | |
82 | ||
83 | # Get the public timeline | |
84 | twitter.statuses.public_timeline() | |
85 | ||
86 | # Get a particular friend's timeline | |
87 | twitter.statuses.friends_timeline(id="billybob") | |
88 | ||
89 | # Also supported (but totally weird) | |
90 | twitter.statuses.friends_timeline.billybob() | |
91 | ||
92 | # Send a direct message | |
93 | twitter.direct_messages.new( | |
94 | user="billybob", | |
95 | text="I think yer swell!") | |
96 | ||
97 | # Get the members of a particular list of a particular friend | |
98 | twitter.user.listname.members(user="billybob", listname="billysbuds") | |
99 | ||
100 | ||
101 | Searching Twitter:: | |
102 | ||
103 | twitter_search = Twitter(domain="search.twitter.com") | |
104 | ||
105 | # Find the latest search trends | |
106 | twitter_search.trends() | |
107 | ||
108 | # Search for the latest News on #gaza | |
109 | twitter_search.search(q="#gaza") | |
110 | ||
111 | ||
112 | Using the data returned | |
113 | ----------------------- | |
114 | ||
115 | Twitter API calls return decoded JSON. This is converted into | |
116 | a bunch of Python lists, dicts, ints, and strings. For example:: | |
117 | ||
118 | x = twitter.statuses.public_timeline() | |
119 | ||
120 | # The first 'tweet' in the timeline | |
121 | x[0] | |
122 | ||
123 | # The screen name of the user who wrote the first 'tweet' | |
124 | x[0]['user']['screen_name'] | |
125 | ||
126 | ||
127 | Getting raw XML data | |
128 | -------------------- | |
129 | ||
130 | If you prefer to get your Twitter data in XML format, pass | |
131 | format="xml" to the Twitter object when you instantiate it:: | |
132 | ||
133 | twitter = Twitter(format="xml") | |
134 | ||
135 | The output will not be parsed in any way. It will be a raw string | |
136 | of XML. | |
137 | ||
138 | ||
139 | The TwitterStream class | |
140 | ----------------------- | |
141 | ||
142 | The TwitterStream object is an interface to the Twitter Stream API | |
143 | (stream.twitter.com). This can be used pretty much the same as the | |
144 | Twitter class except the result of calling a method will be an | |
145 | iterator that yields objects decoded from the stream. For | |
146 | example:: | |
147 | ||
148 | twitter_stream = TwitterStream(auth=UserPassAuth('joe', 'joespassword')) | |
149 | iterator = twitter_stream.statuses.sample() | |
150 | ||
151 | for tweet in iterator: | |
152 | ...do something with this tweet... | |
153 | ||
154 | The iterator will yield tweets forever and ever (until the stream | |
155 | breaks at which point it raises a TwitterHTTPError.) | |
156 | ||
157 | The `block` parameter controls if the stream is blocking. Default | |
158 | is blocking (True). When set to False, the iterator will | |
159 | occasionally yield None when there is no available message. | |
160 | ||
161 | Twitter Response Objects | |
162 | ------------------------ | |
163 | ||
164 | Response from a twitter request. Behaves like a list or a string | |
165 | (depending on requested format) but it has a few other interesting | |
166 | attributes. | |
167 | ||
168 | `headers` gives you access to the response headers as an | |
169 | httplib.HTTPHeaders instance. You can do | |
170 | `response.headers.getheader('h')` to retrieve a header. | |
171 | ||
172 | Authentication | |
173 | -------------- | |
174 | ||
175 | You can authenticate with Twitter in three ways: NoAuth, OAuth, or | |
176 | UserPassAuth. Get help() on these classes to learn how to use them. | |
177 | ||
178 | OAuth is probably the most useful. | |
179 | ||
180 | ||
181 | Working with OAuth | |
182 | ------------------ | |
183 | ||
184 | Visit the Twitter developer page and create a new application: | |
185 | ||
186 | https://dev.twitter.com/apps/new | |
187 | ||
188 | This will get you a CONSUMER_KEY and CONSUMER_SECRET. | |
189 | ||
190 | When users run your application they have to authenticate your app | |
191 | with their Twitter account. A few HTTP calls to twitter are required | |
192 | to do this. Please see the twitter.oauth_dance module to see how this | |
193 | is done. If you are making a command-line app, you can use the | |
194 | oauth_dance() function directly. | |
195 | ||
196 | Performing the "oauth dance" gets you an ouath token and oauth secret | |
197 | that authenticate the user with Twitter. You should save these for | |
198 | later so that the user doesn't have to do the oauth dance again. | |
199 | ||
200 | read_token_file and write_token_file are utility methods to read and | |
201 | write OAuth token and secret key values. The values are stored as | |
202 | strings in the file. Not terribly exciting. | |
203 | ||
204 | Finally, you can use the OAuth authenticator to connect to Twitter. In | |
205 | code it all goes like this:: | |
206 | ||
207 | MY_TWITTER_CREDS = os.path.expanduser('~/.my_app_credentials') | |
208 | if not os.path.exists(MY_TWITTER_CREDS): | |
209 | oauth_dance("My App Name", CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET, | |
210 | MY_TWITTER_CREDS) | |
211 | ||
212 | oauth_token, oauth_secret = read_token_file(MY_TWITTER_CREDS) | |
213 | ||
214 | twitter = Twitter(auth=OAuth( | |
215 | oauth_token, oauth_token_secret, CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET)) | |
216 | ||
217 | # Now work with Twitter | |
218 | twitter.statuses.update('Hello, world!') | |
219 | ||
220 | ||
221 | ||
222 | License | |
223 | ======= | |
224 | ||
8be9a740 | 225 | Python Twitter Tools are released under an MIT License. |